Non-linear behavior of soils during a seismic event has a predominant role in current site response analysis. Soil response analysis consistently indicates that the stress–strain relationship of soils is non-linear and shows hysteresis. When focusing on forced response simulations, time integrations based on modal analysis are widely considered; however, parametric analysis, non-linear behavior and complex damping functions make difficult the online use of standard discretization strategies, e.g., those based on the use of finite element. In this paper, we propose a new harmonic analysis formulation, able to address forced response simulation of soils exhibiting their characteristic non-linear behavior. The solution can be evaluated in real-time from the offline construction of a parametric solution to the associated linearized problem within the Proper Generalized Decomposition framework.

Many models assumed to be able to predict the response of structural systems fail to efficiently accomplish that purpose because of two main reasons. First, some structures in operation undergo localized damage that degrades their mechanical performances. To reflect this local loss of performance, the stiffness matrix associated with the structure should be locally corrected. Second, the nominal model is sometimes too coarse grained for reflecting all structural details, and consequently, the predictions are expected to deviate from the measurements. In that case, there is no small region of the model that needs to be repaired, but the entire domain needs to be repaired; therefore, the entire structure-stiffness matrix should be corrected. In the present work, we propose a methodology for locally correcting or globally enriching the models from collected data, which is, upon its turn, completed beyond the sensor’s location. The proposed techniques consist in the first case of an L1-minimization procedure that, with the support of data, aims at the same time period to detect the damaged zone in the structure and to predict the correct solution. For the global enrichment, instead, the methodology consists of an L2-minimization procedure with the support of measurements. The results obtained showed, for the local problem, a correction up to 90% with respect to the initially incorrectly predicted displacement of the structure, and for the global one, a correction up to 60% was observed (this results concern the problems considered in the present study, but they depend on different factors, such as the number of data used, the geometry or the intensity of the damage). The benefits and potential of such techniques are illustrated on four different problems, showing the large generality and adaptability of the methodology.

Nonlinear behavior of soils during a seismic event has a predominant role in current site response analysis. Soil response analysis, and more concretely laboratory data, indicate that the stress-strain relationship of soils is nonlinear and exhibits hysteresis. An equivalent linearization method, in which non-linear characteristics of shear modulus and damping factor of soils are modeled as equivalent linear relations of the shear strain is usually applied, but this assumption, however, may lead to a conservative approach of the seismic design. In this paper, we propose an alternative analysis formulation, able to address forced response simulation of soils exhibiting their characteristic nonlinear behavior. The proposed approach combines ingredients of modal and harmonic analyses enabling efficient time-integration of nonlinear soil behaviors based on the offline construction of a dynamic response parametric solution by using Proper Generalized Decomposition (PGD)-based model order reduction technique.

Mesh-based solution of 3D models defined in plate or shell domains remains a challenging issue nowadays due to the fact that the needed meshes generally involve too many degrees of freedom. When the considered problem involves some parameters aiming at computing its parametric solution the difficulty is twofold. The authors proposed, in some of their former works, strategies for solving both, however they suffer from a deep intrusiveness. This paper proposes a totally novel approach that from any existing discretization is able to reduce the 3D parametric complexity to the one characteristic of a simple 2D calculation. Thus, the 3D complexity is reduced to 2D, the parameters included naturally into the solution, and the procedure applied on a discretization performed with a standard software, which taken together enable real-time engineering.

This paper revisits visco-elastodynamics from its most standard formulation to some more advanced description involving frequency-dependent damping (or viscosity), analyzing the effects of considering fractional derivatives for representing such viscous contributions. We will prove that such a choice results in richer models that can accommodate different constraints related to the dissipated power, response amplitude and phase angle. Moreover, the use of fractional derivatives allows to accommodate in parallel, within a generalized Kelvin-Voigt analog, many dashpots that contribute to increase the modeling flexibility for describing experimental findings. Finally, the effect of fractional damping in dynamic soil models will be addressed within a seismic site analyses framework.