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Dr. P Pravin Kumar Venkat Rao

Dr. P Pravin Kumar Venkat Rao, Assistant Professor, was invited to Structural Engineering Convention (SEC), an International Conference organized by the Department of Civil Engineering, NIT-Trichy from 12 to 14 December to give a keynote address. He gave a talk on Tri-linear force-displacement model for out-of-plane behaviour of unreinforced masonry wall.  

Here is the summary of his talk: Past earthquakes have repeatedly highlighted and identified the out-of-plane bending action of walls as one of the predominant modes of failure for unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. However, the out-of-plane seismic response of URM walls is still not well understood. In the majority of the cases, this issue has been considered in terms of the capacity of the wall to resist lateral static force. However, several studies have demonstrated that, on the one hand, URM walls subjected to earthquake loads tend to behave as rigid bodies subject to rocking, and on the other hand, they can resist accelerations much higher than their static strength. This explains why these elements are more sensitive to displacements rather than accelerations. Past studies have also shown that the magnitude of maximum displacement is the key response that governs the stability of a wall under out-of-plane loading. This fact suggests that displacement-based modelling could provide a better way of determining seismic design actions for URM walls than traditional force-based approaches. The keynote highlighted a semi-empirical tri-linear displacement-based model that was developed using the test database, considering parameters like aspect ratio, slenderness ratio, axial load ratio, crack height, and material properties. Insights into the analytical expressions for maximum lateral force and instability displacement using the kinematic approach, taking into account the stress block parameters were shared, highlighting the efficacy of the tri-linear model with existing ones using experimental test results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition, he also co-chaired a few sessions:

  • Blast, fire, impact, and safety engineering
  • Computational mechanics, numerical modelling & simulation 
  • Sustainable materials for construction 

December 2024