One of the main challenges for bridge damage identification using monitoring data is to acquire sensitive damage features but insensitive to operational and environmental effects as well as noise. Specifically, the temperature as part of environmental variability can mask structural damages in bridges. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been applied here as a well-known and robust technique for removing environmental variability and obtain damage-sensitive indices. As a first aim, PCA is used considering only ambient vibrations and the natural frequencies are considered as damage indicators. As a second objective, PCA in conjunction with Hilbert Huang Transform (HHT) and Variational Mode Decomposition (VMD) are applied to eliminate the environmental influence in transient vibrations due to traffic. The combined methodology is applied to the case of a numerical benchmark by using the ...

Adobe homes are prone to natural phenomena such as floods, landslides, and earthquakes, due to the intense rains that occur from the month of November to March. This study aimed to investigate the mechanical properties of adobes reinforced with rice husk, lime and neem fibers and evaluate their compressive strength and water absorption capacity. The tests were carried out on adobes with dimensions of 10×10×10 cm3 made with earth, 0.75% rice husk, 0.75% lime and 1 to 3% neem fibers of the total weight of the adobe to determine the evaluations of the specimen. Therefore, a visit was made to the study area located in the province of Yauyos-Peru to classify the type of soil that would be used in the samples, then sift the soil to prepare the mud and let it rest for 24 hours. Then, incorporate the reinforcements and mold the adobes to let them dry for 28 days and proceed with the tests. The...

Structural damage not only causes material losses but also human losses, especially in the case of essential buildings such as health facilities, as they must ensure the provision of medical services during and after an earthquake. On the other hand, Peru is a highly seismic country due to its location on the western edge of South America, an area where the Nazca and South American tectonic plates converge. For this reason, it is essential to reinforce these infrastructures with devices that help prevent and reduce damage caused by earthquakes and guarantee the safety of the hospital. This paper studies the seismic performance of three energy dissipators: Shear Link Bozzo (SLB), Triangular Plate Added Damping and Stiffness (TADAS) and viscous fluid; incorporated into an existing hospital in Peru. The methodology involves modeling these three devices using ETABS software and evaluating th...

Seismic risk is a challenging problem in tall buildings due to the possibility of loss of human life and economic caused by seismic events. Peru is located at the interaction of the South American plate and the Nazca plate, which is why various seismic events of moderate to large magnitude occur. Today there are many ways to solve these problems and it is a very challenging case to reinforce tall buildings. In addition, technological advances in software facilitate and help through programmed models in tall buildings that analyze their structure characteristics such as drift, shear and others. This article proposes a comparative analysis of three types of dissipators: viscous fluid, friction, and metal creep through a Time-History analysis in a 15-story high-rise building located in Peru. The proposed methodology considers three stages: (i) definition of the characteristics and propertie...

Visual inspection is a common method for detecting structural damage, but has limitations in terms of subjectivity, time, and access. This research proposes an innovative approach to identify cracks using a 3D model generated from photographs of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and the use of a convolutional neural network (CNN). These networks are effective in detecting complex patterns, improving the accuracy and efficiency of damage identification based on simple visual inspection. The case study is the old Villena Rey bridge in Lima, Peru. The methodology covers (i) the development of a 3D model of the bridge structure, (ii) the extraction of photographs of the model and its binary segmentation, (iii) the application of deep learning through the training and testing phase of a CNN to achieve crack detection in photographs, and (iv) damage location within the 3D model. An 88.4% accura...

This research covers a comparison between different configurations for the application of Restricted Buckling Brace (BRB) through the dynamic analysis of an irregular building that does not comply with the maximum drifts in one of its directions and is reinforced with the different distributions. The reinforcement with BRB was achieved with the three distributions analyzed and the guidelines of the Peruvian standard E.030 2018 were met. In that sense, the reduction of the maximum inelastic story drifts with the BRB V configuration was 25.64%. The reduction of maximum inelastic story drifts with the Inverted BRB V configuration was 27.92%. While the reduction of maximum inelastic story drifts with the BRB X configuration was 28.71%. Thus, the configuration with the best results was the BRB in X.

Reinforced concrete exposed to high temperatures, such as in a fire, poses a serious threat to buildings by weakening the concrete and reducing the structure's stiffness. Therefore, the article investigated the structural behavior of reinforced concrete when subjected to elevated temperatures in Peru, where many structures are not designed to withstand high temperatures, leading to irreparable damages such as loss of human lives and changes in material properties. To enhance the heat resistance of reinforced concrete, carbon fibers were added, and a percentage of ultra-high-strength concrete was incorporated. The material was analyzed using the finite element method. Different frames were evaluated, focusing on the use of matrices and nodes. The proposal involved adding new materials; carbon fibers were added at 0.06%, and ultra-high-strength concrete at 20%. These quantities were chosen...