Performance and protection of pre-engineered buildings subjected to blast and earthquake excitations

Abstract

A pre-engineered building (PEB) refers to a building which is pre-designed at a factory using some simulation and modelling software as per the specifications, codes and the loads that act on the structure before the production of the building components and then finally assembled at site thereby reducing the completion time. In the current study, a case study of an existing PEB structure subjected to wind analysis has been investigated. The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the retrofitting ability of passive control dampers installed in the pre-engineered industrial building subjected to earthquake and blast phenomenon. The study investigates the effectiveness of vibration control techniques in the form of passive dampers in improving the performance of PEB structure subjected to blast and earthquake using fluid viscous dampers. The study also discusses the impact of different damper placement techniques on the structural performance of PEB structure subjected to blast and earthquake loading. Primarily three damper placement techniques are incorporated in the present study, namely single diagonal, V-shaped damper, and inverted V-shaped damper. The study also evaluates the optimum fluid damper properties, namely damping coefficient and damping exponent, in mitigating the blast and earthquake responses of the selected industrial building. The structural performance of PEB structure has been studied using finite element tool considering the nonlinear analysis and comparing the structural responses for with and without damper conditions. The V-shaped and inverted V-shaped damper placement techniques are the most effective approach in resisting the damaging effects against blasts and earthquakes for the selected PEB structure in comparison with the conventional diagonal braced dampers. The study reports reductions in structural displacements and brace forces in the range of 54–68% and 70–90%, respectively, when installed with V-shaped fluid viscous damper.