Designing support structures is one of the stages of any construction. It is most important to secure the stability of bridges, residential buildings, and other structures in earthquake endangered areas (for instance, in some parts of Japan, eastern part of Northern Caucasus, Siberia, and the Far East). Thus, Evgeny Karpov, a student of the Department of Digital Technologies of the Faculty of Computer Sciences, Voronezh State University, under the supervision of Professor Mikhail Semyonov and Associate Professor Pyotr Meleshenko came up with an idea of using elastoplastic (hysteresis) qualities of the primary unit of any support structure, that is, a beam.
It is a well-known fact that under pressure, during an earthquake or a hurricane, all units of a building's structure, including beams, are subject to deformation. At that point, the inner forces within a material start resisting to regain their initial shape. If, when the pressure is gone, a beam regains a shape which differs from its initial shape, it is a case of elastoplastic hysteresis. However, usually those qualities are overlooked during the stage of modelling, as they are hardly traceable in the construction materials.
“We have detected, however, that even minor hysteresis qualities can change the behaviour of beams under pressure. By changing the parameters of a beam's material, which are accountable for its hysteresis qualities, we can decrease the oscillation amplitude. Therefore, the seismic stability of building structures may be secured not only via increasing their strength, but also by virtue of using the materials which can absorb the oscillation energy. The research results are ground-breaking and provide for absolutely new opportunities for earthquake-resistant construction, which will increase reliability and the safety of new constructions,” said Evgeny Karpov.
