Recently the Armenian Missionary Association of America (AMAA) has approached author this paper with request to carry out base isolation retrofitting design for existing 2-story building stone bearing walls and simultaneously convert it into a 3-story kindergarten. In Armenia seismic buildings is becoming more common method providing protection from earthquake damage. Thanks author’s works in n...

OBJECTIVE To describe legal theories that non-smoking residents of multiple occupancy buildings may employ when affected by environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) from neighbouring units. DESIGN Legal research was conducted in several US states. Research was performed among statutes and regulations. State health regulations were examined as well as common law claims of nuisance, warranties of habi...

This paper comprehensively evaluates the Modal Pushover Analysis (MPA) procedure against the ‘‘exact’’ nonlinear response history analysis (RHA) and investigates the accuracy of seismic demands determined by pushover analysis using FEMA-356 force distributions; the MPA procedure in this paper contains several improvements over the original version presented in Chopra and Goel (2002). Seismic de...

Abstract Infill Masonry Walls (IMWs) are used in the perimeter of a building to separate inner and outer space. IMWs may affect lateral behavior buildings, while they different from those partition walls that two spaces. This study focused on seismic vulnerability assessment Steel Moment-Resisting Frames (SMRFs) assuming placement incorporating nonlinear Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI). The ai...

In this study, the progressive collapse potential of seismically designed steel plate shear wall (SPSW) systems is investigated using the alternate path method, and their performances are compared with those of the conventional special moment frame (SMF) systems. Nonlinear static and dynamic analyses are conducted to follow the progressive collapse of the structures, and their ability of absorb...

The aim objective of this study is to investigate the effects of near-field earthquakes on the response of mid-rise buildings with tubular structure.  For this purpose, a 20-story building with a square plan of six by six bays, all with 6 m span, and story height of 3.70 m is considered.  Axial force of columns, shear lag, and inter-story drift values are used as the main response parameters. N...

Multi-story, old reinforced concrete (RC) structures with a “soft-story” on the ground floor, sustain considerable damage to soft story during earthquakes due presence of masonry infills in upper stories. Aspects such infill–RC frame interaction are briefly discussed and particular retrofitting scheme for is studied. It consists RC infills, added within bays floor frames combined jacketing surr...

Miami-Dade County is highly susceptible to storm surge flooding. The current Federal Insurance Rate Map (FIRM), used determine flood insurance rates for buildings, an excellent resource yet lacks attributes that could provide a finer-resolution of actual vulnerability building level characteristics from one parcel the next within same zone. This study developed novel Storm Surge Building Vulner...