• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.145-159
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• 2004

The conventional method for assessment of liquefaction potential proposed by Seed and Idriss has been widely used in most countries because of simplicity of tests. Even though various data such as stress, strain, stress path, and excess pore water pressure can be obtained from the dynamic test, especially, two simple experimental data such as the maximum deviatoric stress and the number of cycles at liquefaction have been used in the conventional assessment. In this study, a new detailed assessment for liquefaction potential to reflect both characteristics of real earthquake motion and dynamic soil resistance is proposed and verified. In the assessment, the safety factor of the liquefaction potential at a given depth of a site can be obtained by the ratio of a resistible cumulative plastic shear strain determined through the performance of the conventional cyclic test and a driving cumulative plastic shear strain calculated from the shear strain time history through the ground response analysis. The last point to cumulate the driving plastic shear strain to initiate soil liquefaction is important for this assessment. From the result of cyclic triaxial test using real earthquake motions, it was concluded that liquefaction under the impact-type earthquake loads would initiate as soon as a peak loading signal was reached. The driving cumulative plastic shear strain, therefore, can be determined by adding all plastic shear strains obtained from the ground response analysis up to the peak point. Through the verification of the proposed assessment, it can be concluded that the proposed assessment for liquefaction potential can be a progressive method to reflect both characteristics of the unique soil resistance and earthquake parameters such as peak earthquake signal, significant duration time, earthquake loading type, and magnitude.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.3 s.43
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• pp.23-32
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• 2005

Torsional behavior of eccentric structure under seismic leading may cause the stress and/or deformation concentration, which arouse the failure of the structure in an unexpected manner. This study suggests D-R relationship which shows the overall displacement and rotation of the system based on the ultimate displacement capacity of the each lateral load resistant member. Using the suggested D-R relationship and displacement spectrum, the seismic assessment is conducted and verified in comparison with the time history analysis result. Multi-level seismic assessment Is considered which takes multiple seismic hazard levels and respective performance levels into account. Finally, based on the seismic assessment result, seismic rehabilitation process is presented. In this research, two rehabilitation methods are considered. One is done by means of stiffening/strengthening the seismic resistant members, and the other is based on the member ductility. Especially, in the first method, to optimize the rehabilitation result, the rehabilitation problem is modeled as an optimization problem, and solved using BFGS quasi-Newton optimization method.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.599-606
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• 2015

Damage of landslide due to earthquake covers a considerable part of total damage due to earthquake. Landslide due to earthquake affects direct damage of human lives and structures, and social system can be paralyzed by losing functions of roads, basic industries, and so on. Therefore, systematic and specialized research examining the factors affecting the slope stability by earthquakes should be needed. However, method of evaluation of slope stability problems due to earthquake contains somewhat uncertainty since many soil properties are predicted or assumed. In this study, influences of change of soil properties such as degree of saturation and cohesion value are analyzed in factor of safety and displacement using seismic landslide hazard maps based on GIS. As the degree of saturation increases or cohesion decreases, it is found that seismic landslide hazard area marked with factors of safety or displacements tends to increase. Therefore, to draw more exact landslide hazard map during earthquake, it is necessary to obtain accurate soil property information preferentially from site investigation data in the field.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.355-362
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• 2009

Many of residential buildings, which have pilotis in lower stories to meet the architectural needs, are recently constructed in Korea. Usually, infill walls located in the upper stories of these buildings may cause a soft first story, which is very weak from the earthquake resistance. In the design of the buildings, the infill walls of upper stories are usually considered as non-structural elements and thus they are not included in the analytical model. However, the infill walls may affect the seismic behavior of the residential buildings. Therefore, the differences in seismic behaviors of RC buildings with and without masonry infill walls are required to be investigated. In this study, seismic fragility analyses were performed for masonry infilled low-rise RC moment-resisting frames. And seismic behaviors of RC moment-resisting frame with/without masonry infill walls were evaluated. Two types of structural system with the same frame and different allocation of infill walls are used to evaluate the influence of masonry infill walls on seismic behavior of RC moment-resisting frames. The infill walls were modeled as bi-equivalent diagonal struts. The fragility analyses show that the seismic performance of RC moment-resisting frames with soft story is below the desirable building seismic performance level recommended by current seismic codes, indicating high vulnerability of RC moment-resisting frames with soft story.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.263-269
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• 2018

Changes in water depth caused by underwater earthquakes and landslides cause sea surface undulations, which in turn propagate to the coast and result in significant damage as wave heights normally increase due to the wave shoaling process. Various types of numerical models have been developed to simulate the generation and propagation of tsunami waves. Most of tsunami models determine the initial surface of the water based on the assumption that the movement of the seabed is immediately and identically transmitted to the sea surface. However, this approach does not take into account the characteristics of underwater earthquakes that occur with time history and spatial variation. Thus, such an incomplete description on the initial generation of tsunami waves is totally reflected in the error during the simulation. In this study, the analytical solution proposed by Hammack (1973) was applied in the tsunami model in order to simulate the generation of initial water surface elevation by the change of water depth with time history and its propagation. The developed solution is expected to identify the relationship among various type of seabed motions, initial surface undulations, and wave speeds of elevated water surfaces.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2024

In 2017, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety conducted research for the revision of seismic design standards and performed studies on standard design response spectra. As a result, the Common Application Guidelines for Seismic Design Standards were introduced, and these guidelines have been implemented in the national design standards of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport for practical use. However, it should be noted that the research for proposing standard design response spectra during the 2017 revision was conducted before the occurrence of the significant seismic events in South Korea, such as the 2016 Gyeongju Earthquake and the 2017 Pohang Earthquake. To account for these recent major earthquakes, this study adjusted the standard design spectra based on the records of the 2016 Gyeongju Earthquake and the 2017 Pohang Earthquake and conducted ground response analyses accordingly. The results revealed variations in peak ground acceleration (PGA) at the ground surface even within the same ground classification. It was confirmed that this variation can lead to overestimation or underestimation of seismic loads.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.51-117
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• 2019

On 15th November 2017, the coastal city of Pohang, located in the Southeastern part of South Korea was shaken by a magnitude 5.4 earthquake. The earthquake displaced more than 1,700 residents and caused more than $ 300 million dollars of economic loss. It was the second most damaging earthquake in the history of Korea. Soon after the earthquake, a group of scientists raised a possible link between the first Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) project and the earthquake. At the same time, another group of scientists put forward a different hypothesis of the causation of the earthquake claiming that it was caused by the geological movements that were initiated by the Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. Since then, there were scientific debates between the two different groups of scientists. The scientific debate on the causation of the earthquake has been concluded temporarily by the Research Investigatory Committee on the Pohang Earthquake in 2019. The research committee concluded that the earthquake was caused by the Pohang EGS system: this means that the earthquake can be defined not as a natural earthquake, but as an artificially triggered earthquake. This article is to examine the Pohang earthquake can be defined as an Anthropocenic event. The newly suggested concept, the Anthropocene is a relatively novel term to classify the earthly strata and their relationship to geological time. The current geological period should be defined by human activities and man-made earthly environment. Although the term is basically related to geological classification, the Anthropocene has been widely debated amongst humanist and social science scholars. The current disastrous situation of our planet also implies with the Anthropocene. This paper is to discuss how to understand anthropogenic events. In particular, the paper pays attention to two different scholarly positions on the Anthropocene: Isabelle Stenger's Gaia theory and Barbara Herrnstein Smith's relativist theory. The former focuses on the earthly inevitable catastrophe of Anthropocene while the latter suggests to situate and contextualise anthropogenic events. On the basis of the theoretical positions, the article is to analyse how the Pohang earthquake can be located and situated.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.647-658
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• 2021

In this study, the change of temperature, chemical composition, and helium gas of thermal water in Pohang area was observed from January 2018 to June 2019 in order to interpret the relationship with earthquake events. During observation period earthquakes above M 2.0 within 100 km in a radius from a geothermal well occurred 58 including two earthquake events with a magnitude of 3.0~3.9 and two earthquake events with a magnitude of 4.0~4.9. We introduce a q-factor and earthquake effectiveness (ε) to express the influence of each earthquake as magnitude and distance factors. The geothermal well of 715 m deep was developed in the Bulguksa biotite granite, and the water temperature was observed in the variation from 51.8 to 56.3℃ during monitoring period. At M 4.1 and M 4.6 earthquake events, the increase of geothermal water temperature (𝜟T 2.6~4.5℃) was recorded, and slight change in specific ionic components such as SO₄ and Cl, and of chemical types on the Piper diagram were observed. In the ³He/⁴He vs ⁴He/²⁰Ne diagram, the original mixing ratio of helium isotope before and after the magnitude 4.1 earthquake was slightly changed from 83.0% to 83.2% of crust-origin ⁴He, and the from 16.3% to 16.7% of mantle-origin ³He. Hot-cold water mixing ratio before and after earthquakes by using the quartz and chalcedony solubility curves of the silica-enthalpy mixing model was calculated to interpret the temperature change of geothermal water. The model calculation shows the increase of 6.93~7.72% and 1.65~4.94% of hot water ratio at E1 and E2 earthquakes, respectively. Conclusively, the magnitude of earthquake for observable change in the temperature and helium isotope of thermal water is of 4.1 or higher and q-factor value of 30.0 or higher in the study site.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.135-145
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• 2019

The slope collapse can be classified into internal and external factors. Internal factors are engineering factors inherent in the formation of slopes such as soil depth, slope angle, shear strength of soil, and external factors are external loading such as earthquakes. The external factor for earthquake can be expressed by various values such as peak ground acceleration (PGA), peak ground velocity (PGV), Arias coefficient (I), natural period (T_p), and spectral acceleration (S_aT=1.0). Specially, PGA is the most typical value that defines the magnitude of the ground motion of an earthquake. However, it is not enough to consider the displacement in the slope which depends on the duration of the earthquake even if the vibration has the same peak ground acceleration. In this study, numerical analysis of two-dimensional plane strain conditions was performed on engineered block, and slope responses due to seismic motion of scaling PGA to 0.2 g various event scenarios was analyzed. As a result, the response of slope is different depending on the presence or absence of sliding block; it is shown that slope response depend on the seismic wave triggering sliding block than the input motion factors.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.307-317
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to utilize conventional procedures for evaluation of liquefaction potential and to compare the results obtained by modified detailed method based on Korean earthquake magnitude (M=6.5). Liquefaction potential is assessed by comparing liquefaction strength of soil and cyclic shear stress generated in the soil layers during earthquakes. The cyclic shear stress is computed from the earthquake response analysis, and liquefaction strength of soil is evaluated by using results from cyclic triaxial tests. The cyclic triaxial tests are performed on many different conditions of sample ; relative densities(50%, 60%, and 70%), initial effective confining pressures (70kPa, 100kPa, and 150kPa), and fine contents(10%, 20%, and 30%). From the result of comparing the conventional procedure with the modified detailed method, it is found that the modified detailed method tends to evaluate larger safety factor against liquefaction in the weak sand site$(FS \leq1.5)$. Therefore in this case, it is suggested that liquefaction potential should be evaluated by using the modified detailed method based on cyclic triaxial tests. It is also found that in modified detailed method based on earthquake magnitude 6.5, critical depth where liquefaction can be generated is around 15m from the ground surface.