Unequal Competition Among Chains of Supercenters: Kmart,Target, and Wal‐Mart     

Thomas O. Graff 《The Professional geographer》2006,58(1):54-64

The three largest discount chains, Kmart, Target, and Wal‐Mart, have adopted the supercenter format for expansion. This article examines the locations of and the competition among these supercenters. Wal‐Mart has the greatest number of supercenters and is driving the expansion of the supercenter format. Both Kmart and Target have clustered their supercenters in a small number of metropolitan markets. In contrast to Wal‐Mart and Kmart, Target has focused on a middle‐class rather than a blue‐collar clientele. Now Kmart is struggling following a declaration of bankruptcy. Wal‐Mart has largely defeated its supercenter competitors and now is confronting the major grocery chains for grocery sales.  相似文献   

Landscapes of Conflict: The Oregon Story, 1940–2000 by William G. Robbins     

Thomas Harvey 《The Professional geographer》2006,58(3):361-362

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Tests on low‐ductility RC frames under high‐ and low‐frequency excitations     

Ser‐Tong Quek  Chengmei Bian  Xilin Lu  Wensheng Lu  Haibei Xiong 《地震工程与结构动力学》2002,31(2):459-474

The response of low‐ductility reinforced concrete (RC) frames, designed typically for a non‐seismic region, subjected to two frequencies of base excitations is studied. Five half‐scaled, two‐bay, two‐storey, RC frames, each approximately 5 m wide by 3.3 m high, were subjected to both horizontal and/or vertical base excitations with a frequency of 40 Hz as well as a lower frequency of about 4 Hz (close to the fundamental frequency) using a shake table. The imposed acceleration amplitude ranged from 0.2 to 1.2g. The test results showed that the response characteristics of the structures differed under high‐ and low‐frequency excitations. The frames were able to sustain high‐frequency excitations without damage but were inadequate for low‐frequency excitations, even though the frames exhibited some ductility. Linear‐elastic time‐history analysis can predict reasonably well the structural response under high‐frequency excitations. As the frames were not designed for seismic loads, the reinforcement detailing may not have been adequate, based on the crack pattern observed. The effect of vertical excitation can cause significant additional forces in the columns and moment reversals in the beams. The ‘strong‐column, weak‐beam’ approach for lateral load RC frame design is supported by experimental observations. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Seismic response of self‐centring hysteretic SDOF systems     

Constantin Christopoulos  Andr Filiatrault  Bryan Folz 《地震工程与结构动力学》2002,31(5):1131-1150

The seismic response of single‐degree‐of‐freedom (SDOF) systems incorporating flag‐shaped hysteretic structural behaviour, with self‐centring capability, is investigated numerically. For a SDOF system with a given initial period and strength level, the flag‐shaped hysteretic behaviour is fully defined by a post‐yielding stiffness parameter and an energy‐dissipation parameter. A comprehensive parametric study was conducted to determine the influence of these parameters on SDOF structural response, in terms of displacement ductility, absolute acceleration and absorbed energy. This parametric study was conducted using an ensemble of 20 historical earthquake records corresponding to ordinary ground motions having a probability of exceedence of 10% in 50 years, in California. The responses of the flag‐shaped hysteretic SDOF systems are compared against the responses of similar bilinear elasto‐plastic hysteretic SDOF systems. In this study the elasto‐plastic hysteretic SDOF systems are assigned parameters representative of steel moment resisting frames (MRFs) with post‐Northridge welded beam‐to‐column connections. In turn, the flag‐shaped hysteretic SDOF systems are representative of steel MRFs with newly proposed post‐tensioned energy‐dissipating connections. Building structures with initial periods ranging from 0.1 to 2.0s and having various strength levels are considered. It is shown that a flag‐shaped hysteretic SDOF system of equal or lesser strength can always be found to match or better the response of an elasto‐plastic hysteretic SDOF system in terms of displacement ductility and without incurring any residual drift from the seismic event. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Numerical evaluation of the damping‐solvent extraction method in the frequency domain     

Ushnish Basu  Anil K. Chopra 《地震工程与结构动力学》2002,31(6):1231-1250

The damping‐solvent extraction method for the analysis of unbounded visco‐elastic media is evaluated numerically in the frequency domain in order to investigate the influence of the computational parameters—domain size, amount of artificial damping, and mesh density—on the accuracy of results. An analytical estimate of this influence is presented, and specific questions regarding the influence of the parameters on the results are answered using the analytical estimate and numerical results for two classical problems: the rigid strip and rigid disc footings on a visco‐elastic half‐space with constant hysteretic material damping. As the domain size is increased, the results become more accurate only at lower frequencies, but are essentially unaffected at higher frequencies. Choosing the domain size to ensure that the static stiffness is computed accurately leads to an unnecessarily large domain for analysis at higher frequencies. The results improve by increasing artificial damping but at a slower rate as the total (material plus artificial) damping ratio ζ_t gets closer to 0.866. However, the results do not deteriorate significantly for the larger amounts of artificial damping, suggesting that ζ_t≈0.6 is appropriate; a larger value is not likely to influence the accuracy of results. Presented results do not support the earlier suggestion that similar accuracy can be achieved by a large bounded domain with small damping or by a small domain with larger damping. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Multi‐objective optimal design of FLC driven hybrid mass damper for seismically excited structures     

A. S. Ahlawat  A. Ramaswamy 《地震工程与结构动力学》2002,31(7):1459-1479

Structural vibration control using active or passive control strategy is a viable technology for enhancing structural functionality and safety against natural hazards such as strong earthquakes and high wind gusts. Both the active and passive control systems have their limitations. The passive control system has limited capability to control the structural response whereas the active control system depends on external power. The power requirement for active control of civil engineering structures is usually quite high. Thus, a hybrid control system is a viable solution to alleviate some of the limitations. In this paper a multi‐objective optimal design of a hybrid control system for seismically excited building structures has been proposed. A tuned mass damper (TMD) and an active mass driver (AMD) have been used as the passive and active control components of the hybrid control system, respectively. A fuzzy logic controller (FLC) has been used to drive the AMD as the FLC has inherent robustness and ability to handle the non‐linearities and uncertainties. The genetic algorithm has been used for the optimization of the control system. Peak acceleration and displacement responses non‐dimensionalized with respect to the uncontrolled peak acceleration and displacement responses, respectively, have been used as the two objectives of the multi‐objective optimization problem. The proposed design approach for an optimum hybrid mass damper (HMD) system, driven by FLC has been demonstrated with the help of a numerical example. It is shown that the optimum values of the design parameters of the hybrid control system can be determined without specifying the modes to be controlled. The proposed FLC driven HMD has been found to be very effective for vibration control of seismically excited buildings in comparison with the available results for the same example structure but with a different optimal absorber. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

A response‐based decoupling criterion for multiply‐supported secondary systems     

Samit Ray Chaudhuri  Vinay K. Gupta 《地震工程与结构动力学》2002,31(8):1541-1562

It is often infeasible to carry out coupled analyses of multiply‐supported secondary systems for earthquake excitations. ‘Approximate’ decoupled analyses are then resorted to, unless the response errors due to those are significantly high. This study proposes a decoupling criterion to identify such cases where these errors are likely to be larger than an acceptable level. The proposed criterion is based on the errors in the primary system response due to decoupling and has been obtained by assuming (i) the input excitation to be an ideal white noise process, (ii) cross‐modal correlation to be negligible, and (iii) the combined system to be classically damped. It uses the modal properties of the undamped combined system, and therefore, a perturbation approach has been formulated to determine the combined system properties in case of light to moderately heavy secondary systems. A numerical study has been carried out to illustrate the accuracy achieved with the proposed perturbation formulation. The proposed decoupling criterion has been validated with the help of two example primary‐secondary systems and four example excitation processes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Pseudodynamic tests on rubber base isolators with numerical substructuring of the superstructure and strain‐rate effect compensation     

F. J. Molina  G. Verzeletti  G. Magonette  Ph. Buchet  V. Renda  M. Geradin  A. Parducci  M. Mezzi  A. Pacchiarotti  L. Federici  S. Mascelloni 《地震工程与结构动力学》2002,31(8):1563-1582

A pseudodynamic testing procedure has been applied by which the seismic response of a base‐isolated building is obtained by using as specimen the isolators, while the superstructure is numerically simulated. The procedure also takes advantage of the continuous pseudodynamic testing capabilities of the ELSA laboratory, which increase the accuracy of the results and reduce the strain‐rate effect of the rubber bearings. A simple proportional correction of the measured forces compensates the remaining strain‐rate effect due to the unrealistic speed of the test. The correction factor is obtained by means of a characterizing test on the specific rubber isolators. The developed method has been successfully applied to the prediction of the seismic response of a base‐isolated four‐storey building submitted to several specified accelerograms. The results for those earthquakes as well as the effects of some changes of the parameters of the system are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献