• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.25-33
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• 2020

In metropolitan areas, the quantity and density of the underground structure increase rapidly in recent years. Even though most damage incidents of the underground structure were minor, there were still few incidents causing a great loss in lives and economy. Therefore, the safety evaluation of the underground structure becomes an important issue in the disaster prevention plan. Liquefaction induced uplift is one important factor damaging the underground structure. In order to perform a preliminary evaluation on the safety of the underground structure, simplified prediction equations were introduced to provide a first order estimation of the liquefaction induced uplift. From previous studies, the input motion is a major factor affecting the magnitude of the uplift. However, effects of the input motion were not studied and included in these equations in an appropriate and rational manner. In this article, a numerical simulation approach (FLAC program with UBCSAND model) is adopted to study effects of the input motion on the uplift. Numerical results show that the uplift and the Arias Intensity (Ia) are closely related. A simple modification procedure to include the input motion effects in the Sasaki and Tamura prediction equation is proposed in this article for engineering practices.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.326-332
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• 2017

The effects of exposure to an extremely low-frequency magnetic field (25 Hz 20G) on animal cells have been studied. In some reports, stimulation was performed for fixed frequency and variations in magnitude; however, animal-cell experiments have established that both parameters play an important role. The present work undertook the modeling, simulation, and development of a uniform-magnetic-field generation system with variable frequency and stimulation intensity (0-60 Hz, 1-25G) for experimentation with cell cultures in situ. The results showed a coefficient of variation less than 1 % of the magnetic-field dispersion at the working volume, which is consistent with the corresponding simulation results demonstrating a uniform magnetic field. On the other hand, long-term tests during the characterization process indicated that increments of only $0.4^{\circ}C$ in the working volume temperature will not be an interfering factor when experiments are carried out in in situ cell cultures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.487-499
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• 2019

Energy-based seismic design of structures has gradually become prominent in today's structural engineering investigations because of being more rational and reliable when it is compared to traditional force-based and displacement-based methods. Energy-based approaches have widely taken place in many previous studies and investigations and undoubtedly, they are going to play more important role in future seismic design codes, too. This paper aims to compute the maximum earthquake energy input to elastic single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems for selected real ground motion records. A data set containing 100 real ground motion records which have the same site soil profiles has been selected from Pacific Earthquake Research (PEER) database. Response time history (RTH) analyses have been conducted for elastic SDOF systems having a constant damping ratio and natural periods of 0.1 s to 3.0 s. Totally 3000 RTH analyses have been performed and the maximum mass normalized earthquake input energy values for all records have been computed. Previous researchers' approaches have been compared to the results of RTH analyses and an approach which considers the pseudo-spectral velocity with Arias Intensity has been proposed. Graphs of the maximum earthquake input energy versus the maximum pseudo-spectral velocity have been obtained. The results show that there is a good agreement between the maximum input energy demands of RTH analysis and the other approaches and the maximum earthquake input energy is a relatively stable response parameter to be used for further seismic design and evaluations.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.341-380
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• 2023

This study evaluates the seismic fragilities in fill slopes in South Korea through parametric finite element analyses that have been barely investigated thus far. We consider three slope geometries for a slope of height 10 m and three slope angles, and two soil types, namely frictional and frictionless, associated with two soil states, loose and dense for frictional soils and soft and stiff for frictionless soils. The input ground motions accounting for four site conditions in South Korea are obtained from one-dimensional site response analyses. By comparing the numerical modeling of slopes using PLAXIS^2D against the previous studies, we compiled suites of the maximum permanent slope displacement (D_max) against two ground motion parameters, namely, peak ground acceleration (PGA) and Arias Intensity (I_A). A probabilistic seismic demand model is adopted to compute the probabilities of exceeding three limit states (minor, moderate, and extensive). We propose multiple seismic fragility curves as functions of a single ground motion parameter and numerous seismic fragility surfaces as functions of two ground motion parameters. The results show that soil type, slope angle, and input ground motion influence these probabilities, and are expected to help regional authorities and engineers assess the seismic fragility of fill slopes in the road systems in South Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.57-66
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• 2015

Empirical seismic displacement equations based on the Newmark sliding block method are widely used to develop seismic landslide hazard map. Most proposed equations have been developed for embankments and landfills, and do not consider the dynamic response of sliding block. Therefore, they cannot be applied to Korean mountain slopes composed of thin, uniform soil-layer underlain by an inclined bedrock parallel to the slope. In this paper, a series of two-dimensional dynamic nonlinear finite difference analyses were performed to estimate the permanent seismic slope displacement. The seismic displacement of mountain slopes was calculated using the Newmark method and the equivalent acceleration time history. The calculated seismic displacements of the mountain slopes were compared to a widely used empirical displacement model. We show that the displacement prediction is significantly enhanced if the slope is modeled as a flexible sliding mass and the amplification characteristics are accounted for. Regression equation, which uses PGA, PGV, Arias intensity of the ground motion and the fundamental period of soil layer, is shown to provide a reliable estimate of the sliding displacement. Furthermore, the empirical equation is shown to reliably predict the hazard category.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.577-587
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• 2018

The quantitative assessment of the seismic collapse risk of a structure requires the usage of an optimal intensity measure (IM) which can adequately characterise the severity of the ground motion. Research suggests that the average spectral acceleration ($Sa_{avg}$) may be an efficient and sufficient alternate IM as compared to the more traditional first mode spectral acceleration, $Sa(T_1)$, particularly during seismic collapse risk estimation. This study primarily presents a comparative evaluation of the sufficiency of the average spectral acceleration with respect to ground motion duration, and secondarily assesses the impact of ground motion duration on collapse risk estimation. By assembling a suite of 100 historical ground motions, incremental dynamic analysis of 60 different inelastic single-degree-of-freedom (SDF) oscillators with varying periods and ductility capacities were analysed, and collapse risk estimates obtained. Linear regression models are used to comparatively quantify the sufficiency of $Sa_{avg}$ and $Sa(T_1)$ using four significant duration metrics. Results suggests that an improved sufficiency may exist for $Sa_{avg}$ when the period of the SDF system increases, particularly beyond 0.5, as compare to $Sa(T_1)$. In reference to the ground motion duration measures, results indicated that the sufficiency of $Sa_{avg}$ is more sensitive to significant duration definitions that consider almost the full wave train of an accelerogram ($SD_{a5-95}$ and $SD_{v5-95}$). In order to obtain a reduced variability of the collapse risk estimate, the 5-95% significant duration metric defined using the Arias integral ($SD_{a5-95}$) should be used for seismic collapse risk estimation in conjunction with $Sa_{avg}$.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.6
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• pp.785-799
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• 2022

The effect of earthquakes in earthquake resistant structure design stages is influenced by the highest ground acceleration value, which is generally a strength-based approach in seismic codes. In this context, an energy-oriented approach can be suggested as an alternative to evaluate structure demands. Contrary to the strength-based approach, the strength and displacement demands of the structure cannot be evaluated separately, but can be evaluated together. In addition, in the energy-oriented approach, not only the maximum effects of earthquakes are taken into account, but also the duration of the earthquake. In this respect, it can be said that the use of energy-oriented earthquake parameters is a more rational approach besides being an alternative. In this study, strength and energy-oriented approaches of earthquake parameters of 11 different periods of single degree of freedom systems were evaluated over 28 different earthquake situations. The energy spectra intended to be an alternative to the traditional acceleration spectra were created using the acceleration parameter equivalent to the input energy. Two new energy parameters, which take into account the effective duration of the earthquake, are proposed, and the relationship between the strength-oriented spectral acceleration parameters and the energy parameters used in the literature is examined by correlation study. According to the results obtained, it has been seen that energy oriented earthquake parameters, which give close values in similar period situations, will be a good alternative to strength oriented earthquake parameters. It was observed that the energy parameters were affected by the effective duration of the earthquake, unlike the strength-based parameters. It has been revealed that the newly proposed energy parameters considering the effective duration give good correlations. Finally, it was concluded that the energy parameters can be used in the design, and the newly proposed effective energy parameters can shorten the analysis durations.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.175-184
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• 2018

In this paper, comparative analysis of the 9.12 Gyeongju and 11.15 Pohang earthquakes was conducted in order to provide probable explanations and reasons for the damage observed in the 11.15 Pohang earthquake from both earthquake and structural engineering perspectives. The damage potentials like Arias intensity, effective peak ground acceleration, etc observed in the 11.15 Pohang earthquake were generally weaker than those of the 9.12 Gyeongju earthquake. However, in contrast to the high-frequency dominant nature of the 9.12 Gyeongju earthquake records, the spectral power of PHA2 record observed in the soft soil site was highly concentrated around 2Hz. The base shear around 2 Hz frequency was as high as 40% building weight. This frequency band is very close to the fundamental frequency of the piloti-type buildings severely damaged in the northern part of Pohang. Unfortunately, in addition to inherent vertical irregularity, most of the damaged piloti-type buildings had plan irregularity as well and were non-seismic. All these contributed to the fatal damage. Inelastic dynamic analysis indicated that PHA2 record demands system ductility capacity of 3.5 for a structure with a fundamental period of 0.5 sec and yield base shear strength of 10% building weight. The system ductility level of 3.5 seems very difficult to be achievable in non-seismic brittle piloti-type buildings. The soil profile of the PHA2 site was inversely estimated based on deconvolution technique and trial-error procedure with utilizing available records measured at several rock sites during the 11.15 Pohang earthquake. The soil profile estimated was very typical of soil class D, implying significant soil amplification in the 11.15 Pohang earthquake. The 11.15 Pohang earthquake gave us the expensive lesson that near-collapse damage to irregular and brittle buildings is highly possible when soil is soft and epicenter is close, although the earthquake magnitude is just minor to moderate (M 5+).

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.289-302
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• 2011

Since the frequency of the earthquake occurrence in Korean peninsular is continuously increasing, the possibility that massive landslides are triggered by earthquake is also growing in Korea. Previously, the landslide is known to be induced by large magnitude earthquake, whose magnitude is larger than 6.0. However, the landslide can be induced by only small magnitude earthquake, especially in the fully saturated soil. Therefore, the susceptibility of landslide caused by small magnitude earthquake in fully saturated soil is analyzed in this study. For that, the topographical and geological characteristics of the site were obtained and managed by GIS software. In the procedure of the study, slope angle, cohesion, friction angle, unit weight of soil were obtained and constructed as a spatial database layer. Combining these data sets in a dynamic model based on Newmark's displacement analysis, the landslide displacements were estimated in each grid cell. In order to check out the possibility of the earthquake induced landslides, the level of the groundwater table is varied from dry to 80% saturated soil. In addition, in order to analyze the effect of the magnitude of earthquake and distance to epicenter, four different earthquakes epicenters were considered in the study area.