• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.93-105
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• 2023

Seismic isolation and vibration control techniques have been developed and put into practical use by challenging researchers and engineers worldwide since the latter half of the 20th century, and after more than 40 years, they are now used in thousands of buildings, private residences, highways in many seismic areas in the world. Seismic isolation and vibration control structures can keep the structures undamaged even in a major earthquake and realize continuous occupancy. This performance has come to be recognized not only by engineers but also by ordinary people, becoming indispensable for the formation of a resilient society. However, the dynamic characteristics of seismically isolated bearings, the key elements, are highly dependent on the size effect and rate-of-loading, especially under extreme loading conditions. Therefore, confirming the actual properties and performance of these bearings with full-scale specimens under prescribed dynamic loading protocols is essential. The number of testing facilities with such capacity is still limited and even though the existing labs in the US, China, Taiwan, Italy, etc. are conducting these tests, their dynamic loading test setups are subjected to friction generated by the large vertical loads and inertial force of the heavy table which affect the accuracy of measured forces. To solve this problem, the authors have proposed a direct reaction force measuring system that can eliminate the effects of friction and inertia forces, and a seismic isolation testing facility with the proposed system (E-isolation) will be completed on March 2023 in Japan. This test facility is designed to conduct not only dynamic loading tests of seismic isolation bearings and dampers but also to perform hybrid simulations of seismically isolated structures. In this paper, design details and the realization of this system into an actual dynamic testing facility are presented and the outcomes are discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2023.05a
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• pp.183-183
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• 2023

Smart water cities (SWC) are urban municipalities that utilizes modern innovations in managing and preserving the urban water cycle in the city; with the purpose of securing sustainability and improving the quality of life of the urban population. Understanding the different urban water characteristics and management strategies of cities situate a baseline in the development of evaluation scheme in determining whether the city is smart and sustainable. This research herein aims to develop measurements and evaluation for SWC Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and set up a unified global standard and certification scheme. The assessment for SWC is performed in technical, as well as governance and prospective aspects. KPI measurements under Technical Pillar assess the cities' use of technologies in providing sufficient water supply, monitoring water quality, strengthening disaster resilience, minimizing hazard vulnerability, and maintaining and protecting the urban water ecosystem. Governance and Prospective Pillar on the other hand, evaluates the social, economic and administrative systems set in place to manage the water resources, delivering water services to different levels of society. The performance assessment is composed of a variety of procedures performed in a quantitative and qualitative manner, such as computations through established equations, interviews with authorities in charge, field survey inspections, etc. The developed SWC KPI measurements are used to evaluate the urban water management practices for Busan Eco Delta city, a Semulmeori waterfront area in Gangseo district, Busan. The evaluation and scoring process was presented and established, serving as the basis for the application of the smart water city certification all over the world. The established guideline will be used to analyze future cities, providing integrated and comprehensive information on the status of their urban water cycle, gathering new techniques and proposing solutions for smarter measures.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.117-125
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• 2016

Current cities encounter various types of water problems due to rapid urbanization and climate change. The increasing significance of urban water problems calls for the establishment of resilient alternatives to prevent and minimize social loss that results from these phenomena. As a background research for establishing resilient infrastructures for the mitigation of urban water problems, we evaluated the robustness of structural alternatives for urban flood as a representative case. Combining the robustness index (RI) and the cost index (CI), we suggested the robustness-cost index (RCI) as an indicator of the robustness of structural alternatives, and applied the index to assess the existing infrastructures and structural alternatives (i.e., sewer network expansion, additional storage tank construction, and green roof construction) at a site prone to floods located around Gangnam-station, Seoul, Korea. At a rainfall intensity frequency range of 2 to 20 years, the usage of a storage tank and a green roof showed relatively high RCI value, with a variation of an alternative showing greater RCI between the two depending on the size of design rainfall. For a rainfall intensity frequency of 30 years, installing a storage tank with some green roofing was the most resilient alternative based on the RCI value. We proposed strategies for establishing resilient infrastructures for the mitigation of urban floods by evaluating the robustness of existing infrastructures and selecting optimal structural alternatives with the consideration of scales of design disaster.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.485-492
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• 2014

In regards to natural disasters, vulnerability analysis is a component of the disaster risk analysis with one of its objectives as a basis for planning priority setting activities. The volcano eruption raises many casualties and property in the surrounding area, especially when the volcano located in densely populated areas. Volcanic eruptions cannot be prevented, but the risk and vulnerability can be reduced which involve careful planning and preparations that anticipate a future crisis. The social vulnerability as social inequalities with those social factors can influence the susceptibility of various groups to harm and govern their ability to respond. This study carried out the methods of Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) to measure the socially created vulnerability of the people living in Merapi proximal hamlets in Central Java, Indonesia that refers to the socioeconomic and demographic factors that affect the resilience of communities in order to describe and understand the social burdens of risk. Social vulnerability captured here, using a qualitative survey based-data such as interviews to local people with random ages and background to capture the answer vary, also interviews to stakeholders to help define social vulnerability variables. The paper concludes that by constructing the vulnerability index for the hamlets, the study reveals information about the distribution and causes of social vulnerability. The analysis using SoVI confirms that this method works well in ensuring that positive values indicating high social vulnerability and vice versa.