SEISMIC BEHAVIOUR OF A R/C WALL: NUMERICAL SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION

This paper describes the numerical simulation of the seismic behaviour of a mock-up of a six-floor building, constituted by two parallel R/C walls and experimentally tested on a shaking table. Within the scope of an international benchmark the mock-up was submitted to three earthquakes with intensities up to 0.71 g, which induced nonlinear behaviour in the concrete and reinforcement. For the numerical simulations concrete is discretised with 2D finite elements, and its behaviour reproduced via a constitutive model with two scalar damage variables. Steel rebars are discretised with 2-noded truss elements, and their constitutive behaviour under cyclic conditions reproduced by the Menegottb-Pinto model. Specific attention is devoted to Rayleigh damping, focusing on two different strategies: (i) disregarding the damping contribution, or (ii) adopting a damping matrix that takes into account the stiffness changes during the nonlinear analyses. Main results and strategies for simulating the benchmark axe presented, with emphasis on the comparison between the numerical and the experimental results, which show good agreement when the damping contribution is neglected.     

PALAEOCLIMATIC IDENTIFICATION BASED ON AN ISOTOPE STUDY OF TRAVERTINE FROM THE COPPER AGE SITE AT LOS MILLARES,SOUTH-EASTERN SPAIN*

Remains of an aqueduct from the Copper Age settlement of Los Millares have been studied. The isotope results (—7‰ < δ¹⁸O — 5.3‰) show that the aqueduct was used to transport fresh water at room temperature. The results are inconsistent with the aqueduct being used for hot water transport or as a container for water exposed to evaporation processes. Both isotopic and mineralogical results were useful in identifying the origin and use of building materials and also in determining climatic conditions during the time of the settlement occupation.     

BUILDING A BRIDGE TO THE PAST: ARCHAEOMETRY AT THE IPEN REACTOR

Neutron activation analysis has contributed to research in Peru in different scientific fields, particularly in archaeometry. In archaeometry, applications include the characterization of copper alloy artefacts from the tomb of El Señor de Sican to determine production methods, ceramics from the Wari Culture to study production, and distribution of Middle Horizon pottery in Cuzco, ceramics from Villa El Salvador to determine production groups, and obsidian source analysis.     

SIMULATION OF THE CYCLIC BEHAVIOUR OF R/C RECTANGULAR HOLLOW SECTION BRIDGE PIERS VIA A DETAILED NUMERICAL MODEL

In the search for robust constitutive models suitable for reproducing the performance of bridge piers during a seismic event, this paper details the simulation of the cyclic responses of four rectangular hollow section R/C bridge piers. These four R/C bridge piers were built at scale 1/2.5 and tested experimentally. Both tall and short piers are considered, covering situations where bending or shear are of relevance. Furthermore, the four piers were reinforced according to rather different design strategies: (I) the first is a 30-year-old bridge designed without allowance to the seismic action, and (ii) the second is a bridge fulfilling the EC8 provisions. The detailed constitutive model that provides the numerical predictions includes two submodels: one with two scalar damage variables, reproducing the tensile and compressive degradations of concrete, and the other is based on the Giuffre-Menegotto-Pinto formulation, simulating the cyclic behaviour of the re-inforcement. The Damage Mechanics submodel is implemented at the Gauss points of the finite elements that discretize the concrete, whereas the steel submodel is implemented on the 2-noded truss elements adopted for the rebars. A comparison between the numerical and the experimental results is discussed in detail in this paper.