• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.105-116
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• 2022

Seismic demand on nonstructural components (NSCs) is highly dependent on the coupled behavior of a combined supporting structure-NSC system. Because of the inherent complexities of the problem, many of the affecting factors are inevitably neglected or simplified based on engineering judgments in current seismic design codes. However, a systematic analysis of the key affecting factors should establish reasonable seismic design provisions for NSCs. In this study, an idealized 2-DOF model simulating the coupled structure-NSC system was constructed to analyze the parameters that affect the response of NSCs comprehensively. The analyses were conducted to evaluate the effects of structure-NSC mass ratio, structure, and NSC nonlinearities on the peak component acceleration. Also, the appropriateness of component ductility factor (R_p) given by current codes was discussed based on the required ductility capacity of NSCs. It was observed that the responses of NSCs on the coupled system were significantly affected by the mass ratio, resulting in lower accelerations than the floor spectrum-based response, which neglected the interaction effects. Also, the component amplification factor (a_p) in current provisions tended to underestimate the dynamic amplification of NSCs with a mass ratio of less than 15%. The nonlinearity of NSCs decreased the component responses. In some cases, the code-specified R_p caused nonlinear deformation far beyond the ductility capacity of NSCs, and a practically unacceptable level of ductility was required for short-period NSCs to achieve the assigned amount of response reduction.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.117-124
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• 2019

Nonstructural elements are installed according to the function of a building, and refer to the elements other than a structural system that resists external loads. Although the nonstructural elements had the largest part of seismic loss of buildings, seismic design of buildings mainly focuses on structural system and the seismic design of nonstructural elements are rarely conducted. In this study, the seismic design provisions of nonstructural elements presented in Uniform Building Code (UBC) and International Building Code (IBC) were investigated in order to analyze the seismic design considerations of nonstructural elements presented in Korean Building Code (KBC). The results showed that the equivalent static load applied to seismic design of nonstructural elements was revised to take into consideration a total of five items such as effective ground acceleration, vertical amplification factor, response amplification factor, response modification factor, importance factor.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.123-128
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• 2020

Analysis of the 2016 Gyeongju earthquake and the 2017 Pohang earthquake showed the characteristics of a typical high-frequency earthquake with many high-frequency components, short time strong motion duration, and large peak ground acceleration relative to the magnitude of the earthquake. Domestic nuclear power plants were designed and evaluated based on NRC's Regulatory Guide 1.60 design response spectrum, which had a great deal of energy in the low-frequency range. Therefore, nuclear power plants should carry out seismic verification and seismic performance evaluation of systems, structures, and components by reflecting the domestic characteristics of earthquakes. In this study, high-frequency amplification factors that can be used for seismic verification and seismic performance evaluation of nuclear power plant systems, structures, and equipment were analyzed. In order to analyze the high-frequency amplification factor, five sets of seismic time history were generated, which were matched with the uniform hazard response spectrum to reflect the characteristics of domestic earthquake motion. The nuclear power plant was subjected to seismic analysis for the construction of the Korean standard nuclear power plant, OPR1000, which is a reactor building, an auxiliary building assembly, a component cooling water heat exchanger building, and an essential service water building. Based on the results of the seismic analysis, a high-frequency amplification factor was derived upon the calculation of the floor response spectrum of the important locations of nuclear power plants. The high-frequency amplification factor can be effectively used for the seismic verification and seismic performance evaluation of electric equipment which are sensitive to high-frequency earthquakes.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.611-623
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• 2019

A set of mid-rise bare and uniformly infilled reinforced-concrete frame buildings are analyzed for two different seismic intensities of ground-motions (i.e., 'Design Basis Earthquake' and 'Maximum Considered Earthquake') to study their floor response. The crucial parameters affecting seismic design force for acceleration-sensitive non-structural components are studied and compared with the guidelines of the European and the United States standards, and also with the recently developed NIST provisions. It is observed that the provisions of both the European and the United States standards do not account for the effects of the period of vibration of the supporting structure and seismic intensity of ground-motions and thereby provides conservative estimates of the in-structure amplification. In case of bare frames, the herein derived component amplification factors for both the design basis earthquake and the maximum considered earthquake exceeds with their recommended values in the European and the United States standards for non-structural components having periods in vicinity of the higher modes of vibration, whereas, in case of infilled frames, component amplification factors exceeds with their recommended value in the European standard for non-structural components having periods in vicinity of the fundamental mode of vibration, and only for the design basis earthquake. As a consequence of these observations, as well as capping on the design force (in case of United states standard and NIST provisions), in case of the design basis earthquake, the combined amplification factor is underestimated for non-structural components having periods in vicinity of the higher modes of vibration of bare frames, and also for non-structural components having periods in vicinity of the fundamental mode of vibration of infilled frames. At the maximum considered earthquake demand, excepting non-structural components having periods in vicinity of the higher modes of vibration of bare frames, all provisions generally provide conservative estimates of the design floor accelerations.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.67-74
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• 2010

Because of the difference between the actual and computed eccentricity of buildings, symmetrical buildings will be affected by torsion. In provisions, accidental eccentricity is intended to cover the effect of several factors, such as unfavorable distributions of dead- and live-load masses and the rotational component of ground motion about a vertical axis. The torsional amplification factor is introduced to reduce the vulnerability of torsionally imbalanced buildings. The effect of the torsional amplification factor is observed for a symmetric rectangular building with various aspect ratios, where the seismic-force-resisting elements are positioned at a variable distance from the geometrical center in each direction. For verifying the torsional amplification factor in provisions, nonlinear reinforced concrete models with various eccentricities and aspect ratios are used in rock. The difference between the maximum displacements of the flexible edge obtained between using nonlinear static and time-history analysis is very small but the difference between the maximum torsional angles is large.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.49-65
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• 2013

This article presents the statistical characteristics of elastic floor acceleration spectra that represent the peak response demand of non-structural components attached to a nonlinear supporting frame. For this purpose, a set of stiff and flexible general moment resisting frames with periods of 0.3-3.6 sec. are analyzed using forty-nine near-field strong ground motion records. Peak accelerations are derived for each single degree of freedom non-structural component, supported by the above mentioned frames, through a direct-integration time-history analysis. These accelerations are obtained by Floor Acceleration Response Spectrum (FARS) method. They are statistically analyzed in the next step to achieve a better understanding of their height-wise distributions. The factors that affect FARS values are found in the relevant state of the art. Here, they are summarized to evaluate the amplification and/or reduction of FARS values especially when the supporting structures undergo inelastic behavior. The properties of FARS values are studied in three regions: long-period, fundamental-period and short-period. Maximum elastic acceleration response of non-structural component, mounted on inelastic frames, depends on the following factors: inelasticity intensity and modal periods of supporting structure; natural period, damping ratio and location of non-structural component. The FARS values, corresponded to the modal periods of supporting structure, are strongly reduced beyond elastic domain. However, they could be amplified in the transferring period domain between the mentioned modal periods. In the next step, the amplification and/or reduction of FARS values, caused by inelastic behavior of supporting structure, are calculated. A parameter called the response acceleration reduction factor ($R_{acc}$), has been previously used for far-field earthquakes. The feasibility of extending this parameter for near-field motions is focused here, suggested repeatedly in the relevant sources. The nonlinearity of supporting structure is included in ($R_{acc}$) for better estimation of maximum non-structural component absolute acceleration demand, which is ordinarily neglected in the seismic design provisions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.557-585
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• 2013

The recent huge earthquake ground motion records in Japan result in the reconsideration of seismic design forces for nuclear power stations from the view point of seismological research. In addition, the seismic design force should be defined also from the view point of structural engineering. In this paper it is shown that one of the occurrence mechanisms of such large acceleration in recent seismic records (recorded in or near massive structures and not free-field ground motions) is due to the interaction between a massive building and its surrounding soil which induces amplification of local mode in the surface soil. Furthermore on-site investigation after earthquakes in the nuclear power stations reveals some damages of soil around the building (cracks, settlement and sand boiling). The influence of plastic behavior of soil is investigated in the context of interaction between the structure and the surrounding soil. Moreover the amplification property of the surface soil is investigated from the seismic records of the Suruga-gulf earthquake in 2009 and the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake in 2011. Two methods are introduced for the analysis of the non-stationary process of ground motions. It is shown that the non-stationary Fourier spectra can detect the temporal change of frequency contents of ground motions and the displacement profile integrated from its acceleration profile is useful to evaluate the seismic behavior of the building and the surrounding soil.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.133-143
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• 2022

The catastrophic earthquake-induced failure of slopes concentrically distributed at near-fault area, which indicated the special features of near-fault ground motions, i.e. horizontal pulse-like motion and large vertical component, should have great effect on these geo-disasters. We performed shaking table tests to investigate the effect of both horizontal pulse-like motion and vertical component on dynamic response of slope. Both unidirectional (i.e., horizontal or vertical motions) and bidirectional (i.e., horizontal and vertical components) motions are applied to soft rock slope model, and acceleration at different locations is reordered. The results show that the horizontal acceleration amplification factor (AAF) increases with height. Moreover, the horizontal AAF under unidirectional horizontal pulse-like excitations is larger than that subject to ordinary motion. The vertical AAF does not show an elevation amplification effect. The seismic response of slope under different bidirectional excitations is also different: (1) The horizontal AAF is roughly constant under horizontal pulse-like excitations with and without vertical waves, but (2) the horizontal AAF under ordinary bidirectional ground motions is larger than that under unidirectional ordinary motion. Above phenomena indicate that vertical component has limited effect on seismic response when the horizontal component is pulse-like ground motion, but it can greatly enhance seismic response of slope under ordinary horizontal motion. Moreover, the vertical AAF is enhanced by horizontal motion in both horizontal pulse-like and ordinary motion. Thence, we should pay enough attention to vertical ground motion, especially its horizontal component is ordinary ground motion.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.225-242
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• 2008

The site effect for 23 broadband seismic stations in the southern Korean Peninsula was estimated by using the spectral ratio of coda waves. In principle, the site effect means the pure amplification below the station excluding effects of seismic source and attenuation in the wave transmission. However, the site effect determined in this study is equivalent with the relative site amplification factor to the mean amplification for all stations. A total of 500 three-component seismograms from 35 earthquakes, of which magnitude ranged from 2.5 to 5.1 occurred from January, 2001 to January, 2007 was used to obtain the site amplification factor. The site amplification factors were estimated for the frequency bands centered at 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, and 20 Hz. It was found that the factors for two horizontal components of transverse and radial records were concordant with each other in the all frequency bands. However, the factor for the vertical component was found to be systematically lower than those for two horizontal components. The factors obtained in the low frequency band below 2 Hz ranged from 0.5 to 1.5 in all seismic stations except for KMA and KIGAM stations in Bagryeongdo (BRD1 and BRD2) of which factor showed high value above 1.5. Some stations such as SEO, SNU, HKU, NPR, and GKPI showed high value above 1.5 in the high frequency band from 5 to 20 Hz. Especially, the factors of GKP1 station represented extremely high value ranging from 1.8 to 7.8. Also, the factors for stations of KWJ, SND, and ULJ showed low value below 0.5. The spatial distribution for the relative amplification factor represented a tendency of being approximately lower in north-eastern area than south-western area in the southern Korean Peninsula.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.459-470
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• 2014

In this paper, the average probability of the symbol error rate (SER) and throughput are studied in the presence of joint spectrum sensing and data transmission in a cognitive relay network, which is in the environment of an optimal power allocation strategy. In this investigation, the main component in calculating the secondary throughput is the inclusion of the spatial false alarms, in addition to the conventional false alarms. It has been shown that there exists an optimal secondary power amplification factor at which the probability of SER has a minimum value, whereas the throughput has a maximum value. We performed a Monte-Carlo simulation to validate the analytical results.