• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1345-1356
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• 2021

Damage to nuclear power plants causes human casualties and environmental disasters. There are electrical facilities that control safety-related devices in nuclear power plants, and seismic performance is required for them. The 2016 Gyeongju earthquake had many high-frequency components. Therefore, there is a high possibility that an earthquake involving many high frequency components will occur in South Korea. As such, it is necessary to examine the safety of nuclear power plants against an earthquake with many high-frequency components. In this study, the shaking table test of electrical facilities was conducted against the design earthquake for nuclear power plants with a large low-frequency components and an earthquake with a large high-frequency components. The response characteristics of the earthquake with a large high-frequency components were identified by deriving the amplification factors of the response through the shaking table test. In addition, safety of electrical facility against the two aforementioned types of earthquakes with different seismic characteristics was confirmed through limit-state seismic tests. The electrical facility that was performed to the shaking table test in this study was a motor control center (MCC).

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.165-175
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• 2022

Earthquakes have occurred owing to movements on a fault since several billion years ago. Research on the relationship between earthquakes and groundwater began in the 1960s in the United States, but related works, including hydrogeochemistry research, only began in the 2010s in South Korea. In this study, domestic studies on the relationship between earthquakes and groundwater until 2021 were collected from the Web of Science and characterized by subject area (groundwater level, hydrogeochemistry, combination of the two, and others). The results showed that the number of published articles per year was positively correlated with the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, 2016 Gyeongju earthquake, and 2017 Pohang earthquake, with the maximum numbers observed in 2011, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Most studies on the relationship between earthquakes and groundwater level addressed groundwater level fluctuations in the duration of the subject earthquake, with little consideration of the precursors. Groundwater level monitoring data, as well as hydrogeochemical information and microbial communities, may contribute to a more detailed understanding of groundwater flow and chemical reactions in bedrock caused by earthquakes. Therefore, the establishment of a national groundwater monitoring network for seismic monitoring and prediction is required.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.29-44
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• 2018

A ground-motion prediction equation (GMPE) for the Korean Peninsula, especially for South Korea, is developed based on synthetic ground motions generated using a ground motion model derived from instrumental records from 11 recent earthquakes of $M_L$>4.5 in Korea, including the Gyeongju earthquake of Sept. 12. 2016 ($M_L$5.8). PSAs of one standard deviation from the developed GMPE with $M_W$ 6.5 at hypocentral distances of 15 km and 25 km are compared to the design spectrum (soil condition, $S_B$) of the Korean Building Code 2016 (KBC), indicating that: (1) PSAs at short periods around 0.2 sec can be 1.5 times larger than the corresponding KBC PSA, and (2) SD's at periods longer than 2 sec do not exceed 8 cm. Although this comparison of the design spectrum with those of the GMPE developed herein intends to identify the characteristics of the scenario earthquake in a lower-seismicity region such as South Korea, it does not mean that the current design spectrum should be modified accordingly. To develop a design spectrum compatible with the Korean Peninsula, more systematic research using probabilistic seismic hazard analysis is necessary in the future.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.307-314
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• 2018

It became clear that Korean peninsula is not a safe region anymore from an earthquake disaster after Gyeongju and Pohang Earthquake in 2016-2017. Unfortunately, building industry in Korea has not been well prepared for an earthquake disaster and the following problems exist. First, the rate of buildings with proper seismic performance is relatively low. Second, the number of piloti buildings which are vulnerable to earthquake and fire disaster has increased recently. Third, the proportion of small-scale buildings excluded from the application of the building law for securing safety is too high. Fourth, widespread corruption and poor construction impede safety. Therefore, measures to prepare for earthquake disaster are as follows. First, methods of reinforcing building structures and reducing the seismic load acting on a building should be utilized in order to secure the insufficient seismic performance of buildings vulnerable to earthquakes. Second, whistleblowers should be encouraged and protected to prevent defective construction due to corruption. To this end, whistleblowers should be recognized as an effective means of protecting public interest not the traitor to the organization.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.53-72
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to analyze types and features social issues about the Gyeongju earthquakes 2016, South Korea. The specific purpose is to identify types of topics related to Gyeongju Earthquakes, changes of topics over time, and the differences of topics depending on the each type of newspapers. According to the result of topic modeling, 55 topics were extracted. The result of this study is following these. First, the main topics have been changed with the course of time. In September, various topics were emerged, specifically urgent issues was found during two weeks after the first earthquake. After October, topics about social problems derived from the earthquakes received much attention at that time. Topics related to safety problems about nuclear plant have steadily found in all period. Second, topics varied depending whether the newspaper is national or regional. Also, differences of topics were found when dividing the newspapers by their characteristics considered conservative or liberal.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.51-64
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• 2018

Korean peninsula is known to be far from the plate boundary and not to generate large-scale earthquakes. However, earthquakes recently occurred in Gyeongju (2016/09/12, $M_L=5.8$) and Pohang (2017/11/15, $M_L=5.4$). The interest in earthquake engineering has increased, and various studies are actively underway by recently events. However, the seismic station network in Korea is less dense than that of the western U.S., resulting in the lack of data for detailed analyses of earthquakes. Therefore, KMA (Korea Meteorological Administration) set up temporary seismic stations and recorded ground motions from aftershocks. In this study, characteristics of Pohang seismic propagation and generation of bedrock motion are analyzed through the aftershock ground motion records at both permanent and temporary stations, as well as through the collected geological structure and site information. As a result, the response at Mangcheon-Li shows evidences of basin effects from both geology structures and measured aftershock motions.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.228-235
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• 2016

We investigated pre- and post- seismic total electron content (TEC) anomalies in ionosphere caused by recent large-scale earthquakes around the globe and additionally examined whether the similar phenomena are detected in connection with the earthquakes around the Korean Penisula. TEC anomalies associated with the large-scale earthquakes showed the similar results to previous studies. In addition, we newly found the similar TEC changes from the recent 2016 Ecuador earthquake (M7.8). However, the post-seismic TEC changes would be falsely interpreted as the pre-seismic TEC changes dependent on the post-processing of TEC observation. We also investigated the possibility of TEC responses from the recent domestic earthquakes including 2016 Gyeongju earthquake but could not find any anomalous TEC changes. This is probably because the domestic earthquakes release significantly smaller acoustic wave energy than that of large-scale earthquakes occurring in plate boundaries.

• Journal of the Regional Association of Architectural Institute of Korea
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.185-192
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• 2019

Recently, the frequency and magnitude of earthquakes are increasing worldwide. In Korea, the Gyeongju earthquake (2016) and the Pohang earthquake (2017) caused structural damage to many buildings. Since Korea's seismic design standards were revised to three or more stories in 2005, five-story buildings built before the revision are not designed to be earthquake-resistant. In this situation, if strong earthquake occurs in Korea, there will be great damage. To prevent this, seismic retrofit of buildings should be necessary. The seismic retrofit of classical method is mainly used to reduce the displacement generated in the structure by strengthening stiffness and strength. However, since this method increases the base shear force of the structure, it is difficult to apply it to buildings which have weak foundation. Therefore, in this study, we propose the damper system that reduces the response displacement of buildings and suppresses the increase of base shear force by using high damping rubber and steel. And the seismic performance of the damper system is verified through the experiment and the seismic analysis of the structure.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 2021

The design response spectrum presented in the seismic design standard reflects the characteristics of the tectonic environment at a site. However, since the design response spectrum does not represent the ground motion with a specific earthquake magnitude or distance, input ground motions for response history analysis need to be selected reasonably. It is appropriate to use observed ground motions recorded in Korea for the seismic design. However, recently recorded ground motions in the Gyeongju (2016) or Pohang (2017) earthquakes are not compatible with the design response spectrum. Therefore, it is necessary to convert the recorded ground motion in Korea to a model similar to the design response spectrum. In this study, several approaches to adjust the spectral acceleration level at each period range were tested. These are the intrinsic and scattering attenuation considering the earthquake environment, magnitude, distance change by the green function method, and a rupture propagation direction's directivity effect. Using these variables, the amplification ratio for the representative natural period was regressed. Finally, the optimum condition compatible with the design response spectrum was suggested, and the validation was performed by converting the recorded ground motion.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.261-269
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• 2018

This study examines earthquake-induced sloshing effects on liquid storage tanks using computation fluid dynamics. To achieve this goal, this study selects an existing square steel tank tested by Seismic Simulation Test Center at Pusan National University as a case study. The model validation was firstly performed through the comparison of shaking table test data and simulated results for the water tank subjected to a harmonic excitation. For a realistic estimation of the wall pressure response of the water tank, three recorded earthquakes with similar peak ground acceleration are applied:1940 El Centro earthquake, 2016 Gyeongju earthquake, and 2017 Pohang earthquake. Wall pressures monitored during the dynamic analyses are examined and compared for different earthquake motions and monitoring points, using power spectrum density. Finally, the maximum dynamic pressure for three earthquakes is compared with the design pressure calculated from a seismic design code. Results indicated that the maximum pressure from the El Centro earthquake exceeds the design pressure although its peak ground acceleration is less than 0.4 g, which is the design acceleration. On the other hand, the maximum pressure due to two Korean earthquakes does not reach the design pressure. Thus, engineers should not consider only the peak ground acceleration when determining the design pressure of water tanks.