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Existing physics-based modeling approaches do not have a good compromise between performance and computational efficiency in predicting the seismic response of reinforced concrete (RC) frames, where high-fidelity models (e.g., fiber-based modeling method) have reasonable predictive performance but are computationally demanding, while more simplified models (e.g., shear building model) are the opposite. This paper proposes a novel artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced computational method for seismic response prediction of RC frames which can remedy these problems. The proposed AI-enhanced method incorporates an AI technique with a shear building model, where the AI technique can directly utilize the real-world experimental data of RC columns to determine the lateral stiffness of each column in the target RC frame while the structural stiffness matrix is efficiently formulated via the shear building model. Therefore, this scheme can enhance prediction accuracy due to the use of real-world data while maintaining high computational efficiency due to the incorporation of the shear building model. Two data-driven seismic response solvers are developed to implement the proposed approach based on a database including 272 RC column specimens. Numerical results demonstrate that compared to the experimental data, the proposed method outperforms the fiber-based modeling approach in both prediction capability and computational efficiency and is a promising tool for accurate and efficient seismic response prediction of structural systems.
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Data-driven seismic response prediction of structural components
Lateral stiffness of structural components, such as reinforced concrete (RC) columns, plays an important role in resisting the lateral earthquake loads. The lateral stiffness relates the lateral force to the lateral deformation, having a critical effect on the accuracy of the lateral seismic response predictions. The classical methods (e.g. fiber beam–column model) to estimate the lateral stiffness require calculations from section, element, and structural levels, which is time-consuming. Moreover, the shear deformation and bond-slip effect may also need to be included to more accurately calculate the lateral stiffness, which further increases the modeling difficulties and the computational cost. To reduce the computational time and enhance the accuracy of the predictions, this article proposes a novel data-driven method to predict the laterally seismic response based on the estimated lateral stiffness. The proposed method integrates the machine learning (ML) approach with the hysteretic model, where ML is used to compute the parameters that govern the nonlinear properties of the lateral response of target structural components directly from a training set composed of experimental data (i.e. data-driven procedure) and the hysteretic model is used to directly output the lateral stiffness based on the computed parameters and then to perform the seismic analysis. We apply the proposed method to predict the lateral seismic response of various types of RC columns subjected to cyclic loading and ground motions. We present the detailed model formulation for the application, including the developments of a modified hysteretic model, a hybrid optimization algorithm, and two data-driven seismic response solvers. The results predicted by the proposed method are compared with those obtained by classical methods with the experimental data serving as the ground truth, showing that the proposed method significantly outperforms the classical methods in both generalized prediction capabilities and computational efficiency.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1944301
- PAR ID:
- 10306313
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earthquake Spectra
- Volume:
- 38
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 8755-2930
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 1382-1416
- Size(s):
- p. 1382-1416
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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