Facades are popular in modern buildings and are made of different materials such as pre-cast concrete, glass, aluminium, granite or marble and steel. During recent times seismic activity in densely populated areas has resulted in damage and a consequent loss of life. There were many types of building failure, including failure of building facade systems. Facade systems are highly vulnerable and fail more frequently than the buildings themselves with significant devastating effects. During an earthquake building frames suffer large interstorey drifts, causing racking of the building facade systems. The facade systems may not be able to cater for such large deformations and this can result in either functional or total failure at the facade connections or damage by pounding (impact) with adjacent facade panels. Façade failure and collapse can cause serious damage to buildings and injury to people in the vicinity. Moreover, facade represent between 10- 20 % or more of the total building cost depending on the size and importance of the facility and facade material (Facades1980). Considering the cost and safety issues, the importance of a well designed facade system on a building needs to be emphasised. In modern buildings, energy absorbing passive damping devices are very commonly used for energy absorption in order to manage the vibration response of multistorey buildings in an earthquake event. A number of manufactured dampers such as Viscoelastic and viscous, friction and yielding dampers are available. These dampers use a range of materials and designs in order to achieve diverse levels of damping and stiffness. This thesis is an investigation of the seismic behaviour of building facade systems and studies the effects of facade and connection properties on this response. The objectives with energy absorbing connections of the study are to determine and control facade distortions and to establish the required connection properties. Finite Element techniques have been used for modelling and analysis of the building frame, facade and connections. Time history analyses under earthquake loadings were carried out to determine the system response in terms of inter-storey drifts, facade distortions, differential displacement between facades and frames and the axial force in horizontal connections. Connection properties with respect to stiffness and energy absorption capability (or damping) have been modelled and varied to obtain the desired response. Findings illustrate the influence of these connection properties on system response and show that it is possible to control facade distortions to within acceptable limits. They also demonstrate that energy absorbing connections are able to reduce inter-storey drifts and mitigate the detrimental seismic effects on the entire building facade system.

Natural disasters usually occur without any warning. They can leave trail of destruction and cause much tragedy. We are at a time when we witness fast technological advances; hence, we need to apply the force of scientific advancements to decrease economic losses and the number of human deaths. Tsunami is one of the extreme environmental events that leaves nothing but a path of death and destruction, and as a result, it is essential to understand this phenomenon and identify the mitigation strategies. Several mitigation strategies have been proposed so far; however, more investigations are still required to achieve an acceptable solution. Researchers around the world are studying different aspects of this phenomenon. One of the proposed solutions that has received much attention is designing tsunami-resistant structures which can withstand the force of a tsunami bore. Various studies have been done so far to understand the base shear force of tsunami bore on structures. The focus of this thesis is to improve and better understand the characteristics of the tsunami base shear forces on structures. Hence, in this thesis, two numerical studies were proposed and performed with the main goal of estimating the total tsunami forces on structure under two different conditions. Those include structures with various cross sections, as well as positioning a mitigation wall at an appropriate location relative to the structure. The first study focused on developing a numerical model to study the relationship between tsunami forces and the geometry of the structure. The main goal of this study was to define a numerical model capable of simulating this case precisely. To ensure the accuracy of the model, a comparison was carried out between the results of the numerical model and experimental test performed at the NRC-CHC (National Research Council- Canadian Hydraulics Center) laboratory in Ottawa, Canada and Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium, which revealed a very good agreement between the results of the experimental test and numerical model. Further, the validated model was applied to investigate the tsunami force on structures with various cross sections. The second study focus was on developing a numerical model for understanding the role of mitigation wall (a novel idea proposed as a mitigation strategy by the second author of technical paper 2) on reducing the exerted force of tsunami on structures. After developing various models and applying several turbulence models, a valuable result was obtained which demonstrated that a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model seems to be an excellent approach for predicting the tsunami forces on the structure with a mitigation wall in the direction of the flow. The results of this study will be used to better estimate the tsunami forces exerted on coastal structures which will light the path to the main goal of designing tsunami resistant-structures.

A new methodology is proposed to perform nonlinear time domain analysis on three-dimensional reinforced concrete bridge structures subjected to spatially varying seismic ground motions. A stochastic algorithm is implemented to generate unique and correlated time history records under each bridge support to model the spatial variability effects of seismic wave components traveling in the longitudinal and transverse direction of the bridge. Three-dimensional finite element models of highway bridges with variable geometry are considered where the nonlinear response is concentrated at bidirectional plastic hinges located at the pier end zones. The ductility demand at each pier is determined from the bidirectional rotations occurring at the plastic hinges during the seismic response evaluation of the bridge models. Variability of the soil characteristics along the length of the bridge is addressed by enforcing soil response spectrum compatibility of the generated time history records and of the dynamic stiffness properties of the spring sets modeling soil rigidity at the soil-foundation interface at each support location. The results on pier ductility demand values show that their magnitude depends on the type of soil under the pier supports, the pier location and the overall length and geometry of the bridge structure. Maximum ductility demand values were found to occur in piers supported on soft soils and located around the mid span of long multi-span bridges. The results also show that pier ductility demand values in the transverse direction of the bridge can be significantly different than the values in the longitudinal direction and in some instances, the maximum value occurs in the transverse direction. Moreover, results also show that ignoring the effects of spatial variability of the seismic excitation, the pier ductility demand can be severely underestimated. Finally, results show that increasing the vertical acceleration component in the seismic wave will generate an increase in the pier axial loads, which will reduce the ductility range of the pier plastic zones. As result, even though the increase in pier ductility demand associated with the increase in the vertical acceleration component was found to be relatively small, the number piers exhibiting significant structural damage increased.

Cette étude vise à caractériser des fragments clés d’une interface de subduction fossile affleurant dans la Ceinture Métamorphique du Sud-Tianshan (Chine). Nous étudions les processus de subduction au travers de la profondeur critique de ~80 km, au-delà de laquelle la géophysique et les modèles prévoient un changement du couplage mécanique, et les roches océaniques ne sont normalement pas exhumées. Ce travail s’intéresse au Complexe Métamorphique Akeyazi (AMC), un épais empilement de roches métavolcanoclastiques enveloppant des écailles éclogitiques, exposé sur ~30 km dans la vallée de Kebuerte, et préservant de nombreuses reliques de coésites. L’étude structurale révèle que l’AMC est un dôme métamorphique consistant de plusieurs nappes cohérentes d’ampleur kilométrique avec des histoire P-T-t-d distinctes. 4 unités sur 6, i.e. UH (2.75 GPa/480-560°C), EB (2.1/505), MU (1.45/485) et GT (>0.7-1.0/470-520) ont été subduites à des profondeurs de ~85, 65, 45 et 30 km respectivement. La déformation rétrograde des unités, liée à leur exhumation, est caractérisée par des bandes de cisaillement top vers le Nord au faciès schiste bleu. Le pic d’enfouissement de ces unités a eu lieu à 320±1, 332±2, 359±2 et 280-310 Ma pour les unités UH, EB, MU et schiste vert, indiquant plusieurs courts épisodes de détachement de matériel de la plaque plongeante. L’évolution tectono-métamorphique de ~12 à 5-7°C/km au cours du temps peut refléter le refroidissement progressif de la subduction. La juxtaposition et l’exhumation à 1-3 mm/an de ces 4 unités à des profondeurs crustales a eu lieu autour de 290-300 Ma. / This study attempts to characterize key fossil fragments of material equilibrated along subduction plate boundary, now exposed in Chinese SW-Tianshan Metamorphic Belt (STMB). We herein elucidate some subduction zone processes across a critical depth range of ~80km, beyond which geophysicist and modeler infer a change in mechanical coupling and oceanic rocks are usually not recovered. It focuses on an unusually thick pile of HP/UHP metavolcanoclastics, wrapping eclogite slices and preserving pervasive coesite relics, along a ~30km-long transect across the Akeyazi metamorphic complex (AMC) in the Kebuerte valley. Structural studies reveal the current geometry of the AMC is a metamorphic dome with evidence of internal nappe stacking and should be subdivided into several coherent, km-scale tectonic units with distinct P-T-time-deformation histories. At least 4 of 6 sub-units identified here, i.e., the UH (2.75 GPa/480-560°C), EB (2.1/505), MU (1.45/485) and GT units (>0.7-1.0/470-520) were subducted and buried to depths of ~85, 65, 45 and 30 km respectively. Deformation following EC/BS-EC peak burial is marked by pervasive BS facies exhumation-related shear senses with a top to North component. Radiometric constraints yield peak burial ages of 320±1, 332±2, 359±2 and 280-310 Ma, respectively, for the UH, EB, MU and GS facies units, indicating several short-lived detachment episodes of material from the downgoing plate. The tectono-metamorphic evolution from ~12 to 5-7°C/km with time may reflect progressive cooling of the subduction system. Juxtaposition & exhumation of those 4 units to mid-crustal depth, at rates on the order of 1-3 mm/yr, was accomplished around 290-300Ma.