• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.884-891
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• 2020

The collapse of bridges can cause massive casualties and economic losses. Therefore, it is thus essential to evaluate the structural safety of bridges. For this task, structural reliability analysis, considering various bridge-related uncertainty factors, is often used. This paper proposes a new computational platform to perform structural reliability analysis for bridges and evaluate their structural safety under various loading conditions. For this purpose, a software package of reliability analysis, Finite Element Reliability Using MATLAB (FERUM), was integrated with MIDAS/CIVIL, which is a widely-used commercial software package specialized for bridges. Furthermore, a graphical user interface (GUI) control module has been added to FERUM to overcome the limitations of software operation. In this study, the proposed platform was applied to a simple frame structure, and the analysis results of the FORM (First-Order Reliability Method) and MCS (Monte Carlo simulation), which are representative reliability analysis methods, were compared. The proposed platform was verified by confirming that the calculated failure probability difference was less than 5%. In addition, the structural safety of a pre-stressed concrete (PSC) bridge was evaluated considering the KL-510 vehicle model. The proposed new structural reliability analysis platform is expected to enable an effective reliability-based safety evaluation of bridges.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.718-725
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• 2017

A liquid storage tank is one of the most important structures in industrial complexes dealing with chemicals, and its structural damage due to an earthquake may cause a disastrous event such as the leakage of hazardous materials, fire, and explosion. It is thus essential to assess the seismic fragility of liquid storage tanks and prepare for seismic events in advance. When a liquid storage tank is oscillated by a seismic load, the hydrodynamic pressure caused by the liquid-structure interaction increases the stress and causes structural damage to the tank. Meanwhile, the seismic fragility of the structure can be estimated by considering the various sources of uncertainty and calculating the failure probabilities in a given limiting state. To accurately evaluate the seismic fragility of liquid storage tanks, a sophisticated finite element analysis is required during their reliability analysis. Therefore, in this study, FERUM-ABAQUS, a recently-developed computational platform integrated with commercial finite element and reliability analysis software packages, is introduced to perform the finite element reliability analysis and calculate the failure probability of a liquid storage tank subjected to a seismic load. FERUM-ABAUS allows for automatic data exchange between these two software packages and for the efficient seismic fragility assessment of a structure. Using this computational platform, the seismic fragility curve of a liquid storage tank is successfully obtained.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.149-165
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• 2016

Floods have been known to be one of the main causes of bridge collapse. Contrary to earthquakes, flood events tend to occur repeatedly and more frequently in rainfall areas; flood-induced damage and collapse account for a significant portion of disasters in many countries. Nevertheless, in contrast to extensive research on the seismic fragility analysis for civil infrastructure, relatively little attention has been devoted to the flood-related fragility. The present study proposes a novel methodology for deriving flood fragility curves for bridges. Fragility curves are generally derived by means of structural reliability analysis, and structural failure modes are defined as excessive demands of the displacement ductility of a bridge under increased water pressure resulting from debris accumulation and structural deterioration, which are known to be the primary causes of bridge failures during flood events. Since these bridge failure modes need to be analyzed through sophisticated structural analysis, flood fragility curve derivation that would require repeated finite element analyses may take a long time. To calculate the probability of flood-induced failure of bridges efficiently, in the proposed framework, the first order reliability method (FORM) is employed for reducing the required number of finite element analyses. In addition, two software packages specialized for reliability analysis and finite element analysis, FERUM (Finite Element Reliability Using MATLAB) and ABAQUS, are coupled so that they can exchange their inputs and outputs during structural reliability analysis, and a Python-based interface for FERUM and ABAQUS is newly developed to effectively coordinate the fragility analysis. The proposed framework of flood fragility analysis is applied to an actual reinforced concrete bridge in South Korea to demonstrate the detailed procedure of the approach.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.209-221
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• 2012

The flutter reliability analysis of long span bridges requires use of a software tool that predicts the uncertainty in a flutter response due to uncertainties in the model formulation and input parameters. Existing flutter analysis numerical codes are not capable of dealing with stochastic uncertainty in the analysis of long span bridges. The goal of the present work is to develop a software tool (FREASB) to enable designers to efficiently and accurately conduct flutter reliability analysis of long span bridges. The FREASB interfaces an open-source Matlab toolbox for structural reliability analysis (FERUM) with a typical deterministic flutter analysis code. The paper presents a brief introduction to the generalized first-order reliability method implemented in FREASB and key steps involved in coupling it with a typical deterministic flutter analysis code. A numerical example concerning flutter reliability analysis of a long span suspension bridge with a main span of 1385 m is presented to demonstrate the application and effectiveness of the methodology and the software.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.121-132
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• 2009

A systematic reliability evaluation approach for torsional divergence analysis of long span suspension bridges is proposed, consisting of the first order reliability method and a simplified torsional divergence analysis method. The proposed method was implemented in the deterministic torsional divergence analysis program SIMTDB through a new strategy involving interfacing the proposed method with SIMTDB via a freely available MATLAB software tool (FERUM). A numerical example involving a detailed computational model of a long span suspension bridge with a main span of 888 m is presented to demonstrate the applicability and merits of the proposed method and the associated software strategy. Finally, the most influential random variables on the reliability of long span suspension bridges against torsional divergence failure are identified by a sensitivity analysis.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.724-731
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• 2016

As the structural damage caused by earthquakes has been gradually increasing, estimating the seismic fragility of structures has become essential for earthquake preparation. Seismic fragility curves are widely used as a probabilistic indicator of structural safety against earthquakes, and many researchers have made efforts to develop them in a more accurate and effective manner. However, most of the previous research studies used simplified 2D analytical models when deriving fragility curves, mainly to reduce the numerical simulation time; however, in many cases 2D models are inadequate to accurately evaluate the seismic behavior of a structure and its seismic vulnerability. Thus, this study provides a way to derive more accurate, but still effective, seismic fragility curves by using 3D analytical models. In this method, the reliability analysis software, FERUM, is integrated with the structural analysis software, ZEUS-NL, enabling the automatic exchange of data between these two software packages, and the first order reliability method (FORM), which is not a sampling-based method, is utilized to calculate the structural failure probabilities. These tools make it possible to conduct structural reliability analyses effectively even with 3D models. By using the proposed method, this study conducted a seismic vulnerability assessment of RC frame structures with their 3D analytical models.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.847-867
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• 2014

There are continuous efforts to mitigate structural losses from earthquakes and manage risk through seismic risk assessment; seismic fragility curves are widely accepted as an essential tool of such efforts. Seismic fragility curves can be classified into four groups based on how they are derived: empirical, judgmental, analytical, and hybrid. Analytical fragility curves are the most widely used and can be further categorized into two subgroups, depending on whether an analytical function or simulation method is used. Although both methods have shown decent performances for many seismic fragility problems, they often oversimplify the given problems in reliability or structural analyses owing to their built-in assumptions. In this paper, a new method is proposed for the development of seismic fragility curves. Integration with sophisticated software packages for reliability analysis (FERUM) and structural analysis (ZEUS-NL) allows the new method to obtain more accurate seismic fragility curves for less computational cost. Because the proposed method performs reliability analysis using the first-order reliability method, it provides component probabilities as well as useful byproducts and allows further fragility analysis at the system level. The new method was applied to a numerical example of a 2D frame structure, and the results were compared with those by Monte Carlo simulation. The method was found to generate seismic fragility curves more accurately and efficiently. Also, the effect of system reliability analysis on the development of seismic fragility curves was investigated using the given numerical example and its necessity was discussed.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.325-331
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• 2016

This research developed a flood fragility curve of bridges considering the debris impacts. Damage and failures of civil infrastructure due to natural disasters can cause casualties as well as social and economic losses. Fragility analysis is an effective tool to help better understand the vulnerability of a structure to possible extreme events, such as earthquakes and floods. In particular, flood-induced failures of bridges are relatively common in Korea, because of the mountainous regions and summer concentrated rainfall. The main failure reasons during floods are reported to be debris impact and scour; however, research regarding debris impacts is considered challenging due to various uncertainties that affect the failure probability. This study introduces a fragility analysis methodology for evaluating the structural vulnerability due to debris impacts during floods. The proposed method describes how the essential components in fragility analysis are considered, including limit-state function, intensity measure of the debris impact, and finite element model. A numerical example of the proposed fragility analysis is presented using a bridge pier system under a debris impact.