Study on Seismic Assessment of Mechanical Members Focused on Energy Available to Purchase

Generally, mechanical members are required to be highly safe to withstand a lot of earthquakes. Specially, seismic evaluation and design techniques for mechanical members have been required in earthquake-prone countries. According to studies on failure of pipes, the critical load due to earthquake is a cyclic loading. Therefore, the design techniques that are able to evaluate cumulative damages is needed. Recently, relationship between failure and energy has been examined by paying attention to the Energy Balance equation which is said to be effective as an earthquake response analysis technique. This study carries out failure experiments using simple mass point models having various cross section based on Energy Balance Method. Although the target model in our earlier study was a simple single degree of freedom model of hundreds of gram order, in order to perform detailed earthquake-proof evaluation for actual mechanical members, examination by large mass type models is needed. The consideration of the influence of the section modulus or the moment of inertia area on the energy required to failure is examined by using the model on the order of tens of kg, by focusing on the local response for the strain at the point of failure.