Keywords: reinforced concrete arch, ultimate strength, shaking table test, dynamic nonlinear analysis.

In this paper, the results of a dynamic destructive experiment of a reinforced concrete (RC) arch and its numerical analysis for the purpose of evaluation of the earthquake resistance of an RC arch/shell of a large span and verification of the numerical analysis technique are shown. In the test, an arch with a 20-m span was considered, and a circular arch of a 1/10 scale was used as the specimen. In order to reproduce the vibration destruction by using a seismic-wave input, an arch of comparatively small strength predicted by a prior numeric simulation was designed. In the experiment, the input using a real seismic-wave record (JMA-Kobe), which gave the time compression based on a similarity rule, was used on two levels after checking the natural frequency using a sweep test. The dynamic failure mode and the strength were identified using the experimental results, and a qualitatively and quantitatively good coincidence with the numerical simulation was obtained. In the test, although the structural instability, which results in four hinges, was prevented for safety, in a computational analysis, numerical instability was shown at the stage with three hinges. It is considered that a prediction with sufficient accuracy is practically possible.

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