• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.25-38
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• 2022

The RC private constructions represent a large part of the housing stock in the north part of Algeria. For various reasons, they are mostly built without any seismic considerations and their seismic vulnerability remains unknown for different levels of seismic intensity possible in the region. To support future seismic risk mitigation efforts in northern Algeria, this document assesses the seismic vulnerability of typical private RC constructions built after the Boumerdes earthquake (May 21, 2003) without considering existing seismic regulation, through the development of analytical fragility curves. The fragility curves are developed for four representative RC frames in terms of slight, moderate, extensive, and complete damage states suggested in HAZUS-MH 2.1, using nonlinear time history analyses. The numerical simulation of the nonlinear seismic response of the structures is performed using the SeismoStruct software. An original intensity measure (IM) is proposed and used in this study. It is the zone acceleration coefficient "A", through which the seismic hazard level is represented in the Algerian Seismic Regulations. The efficiency, practicality, and proficiency of the choice of IM are demonstrated. Incremental dynamic analyses are conducted under fifteen ground motion accelerograms compatible with the elastic target spectrum of the Algerian Seismic Regulations. In order to cover all the seismic zones of northern Algeria, the accelerograms are scaled from 0.1 to 2.5 in increments of 0.1. The results mainly indicate that private constructions built after the Boumerdes earthquake in the moderate and high seismic zones with four (04) or more storeys are highly vulnerable.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.121-128
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• 2024

There are growing concerns that the recently implemented Earthquake Early Warning service is overestimating the rapidly provided earthquake magnitudes (M). As a result, the predicted damages unnecessarily activate earthquake protection systems for critical facilities and lifeline infrastructures that are far away. This study is conducted to improve the estimation accuracy of M by incorporating the observed S-wave seismograms in the near source region after removing the site effects of the seismograms in real time by filtering in the time domain. The ensemble of horizontal S-wave spectra from at least five seismograms without site effects is calculated and normalized to a hypocentric target distance (21.54 km) by using the distance attenuation model of Q(f)=348f^0.52 and a cross-over distance of 50 km. The natural logarithmic mean of the S-wave ensemble spectra is then fitted to Brune's source spectrum to obtain the best estimates for M and stress drop (SD) with the fitting weight of 1/standard deviation. The proposed methodology was tested on the 18 recent inland earthquakes in South Korea, and the condition of at least five records for the near-source region is sufficiently fulfilled at an epicentral distance of 30 km. The natural logarithmic standard deviation of the observed S-wave spectra of the ensemble was calculated to be 0.53 using records near the source for 1~10 Hz, compared to 0.42 using whole records. The result shows that the root-mean-square error of M and ln(SD) is approximately 0.17 and 0.6, respectively. This accuracy can provide a confidence interval of 0.4~2.3 of Peak Ground Acceleration values in the distant range.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.29-50
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• 2015

Safe blast criteria based on the concept of scaled distances can be obtained from the statistical analysis on measured peak particle velocity data of blast vibrations. Two types of scaled distance widely used in Korea are the square root scaled distance (SRSD) and cube root scaled distance (CRSD). In contrast to SRSD scheme, however, the function of maximum charge per delay for CRSD increases without bound after the intersection point of these two functions despite of the similar goodness of fits. To prevent structural damage that may be caused by the excessive charge in the case of CRSD, it is suggested that CRSD be used within a specified distance slightly beyond the intersection point. On the other hand, there are several attempts that predict vibration level(VL) from the peak particle velocity(PPV) or estimate VL based on the scaled distances without considering their frequency spectra. It appears that these attempts are conducted in blasting contracts only for the purpose of satisfying the environment-related law, which mainly deals with the annoyance aspects of noises and vibrations in human life. But, in principle there could no correlation between peaks of velocity and acceleration over entire frequency spectrum. Therefore, such correlations or estimations should be conducted only between the waves with the same or very similar frequency spectra. Finally, it is a known fact that structural damage due to ground vibration is related to PPV level, the safety level criteria for structures should be defined by allowable PPV levels together with their zero crossing frequencies (ZCF).

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.71-83
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• 2014

Busan is located at the mouth of Nakdong River and if an earthquake occurs, it is very likely that the damage by the earthquake will be worse as liquefaction can happen in the sand layer, builtup soil, and landfill ground due to amplification in the lower sedimentary layer that is well developed in the river mouth. Therefore, this study first examined the possibility of liquefaction in the replaced sand layer under breakwater using 14 earthquakes in 5.6-7.9 scale and artificial earthquakes including the seismic wave suggested in the standard specifications for seismic design of ports and fishing port facilities to evaluate the stability of breakwater which is the primary protective structure for port facilities against earthquakes. Second, analysis on characteristics of the seismic energy and acceleration response spectrum by size of earthquake was performed to suggest the most appropriate size of seismic wave for the condition in Korea. Third, finite element analysis was performed using the suggested seismic wave to study the characteristics of earthquake by finding the dynamic lateral displacement of breakwater and verifying the stability of structure and the displacement and forces occurring at geotextile. Results of the study showed that the possibility of liquefaction in the landfill and replaced sand layer, the dynamic lateral displacement of breakwater, and changes of geotextile are greatly affected by the subsurface ground (replaced sand layer).

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.49-56
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• 2010

In general, the seismic intensity deduced from instrumental data has been evaluated from the empirical relation between the intensity and the PGA. From the point of view that the degree of earthquake damage is more closely associated with the seismic intensity than with the observed PGA, JMA developed the instrumental seismic intensity (JMA instrumental intensity) meter that estimate the real-time seismic intensity from the observed strong motion data to obtain a more correct estimate of earthquake damage. The purpose of the present study is to propose a practical application of the JMA instrumental intensity in Korea. Since the occurrence of strong earthquakes is scarce in the Korean Peninsula, there is an insufficiency of strong motion data. As a result, strong motion data were synthesized by a stochastic procedure to satisfy the characteristics of a seismic source and crustal attenuation of the Peninsula. Six engineering ground motion parameters, including the JMA instrumental intensity, were determined from the synthesized strong motion data. The empirical relations between the ground motion parameters were then analyzed. Cluster analysis to classify the parameters into groups was also performed. The result showed that the JMA acceleration ($a_0$) could be classified into similar group with the spectrum intensity and the relatively distant group with the CAV (Cumulative Absolute Velocity). It is thought that the $a_0$ or JMA intensity can be used as an alternative criterion in the evaluation of seismic damage. On the other hand, attenuation relation equations for PGA and $a_0$ to be used in the prediction of seismic hazard were derived as functions of the moment magnitude and hypocentral distance.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.13-19
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• 2013

In this study, the target ground was selected for the assessment of liquefaction, for which energy-based Arias intensity liquefaction assessment method was applied, The results of evaluation by simplified method using conventional in-situ test were compared. The result of the assessment of liquefaction revealed that the safety factor of the Arias Intensity using the actual records of the Hachinohe and Ofunato earthquake showed generally similar trends with the simplified method, However, the Arias Intensity factor of safety for the artificial earthquake created from the design response spectrum showed some difference from the factors of safety of the simplified method. The shear stress ratio and the occurrence strength of the Arias Intensity are differently calculated between stress and energy, but the resistance stress ratio of the simplified method and the resistance strength of the Arias Intensity use the empirical chart of the results of the standard penetration test for the actual liquefaction areas by the earthquake, which seems the reason for the similar results between Arias Intensity assessment and stress concept simplified method for Hachinohe and Ofunato earthquakes. Therefore, it was found that the energy-based Arias Intensity liquefaction assessment could represent the dynamic changes of the ground caused by seismic characteristics such as acceleration, magnitude, duration and amplitude.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.143-159
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• 2017

A probabilistic fragility assessment procedure is developed in this paper to predict risks of damage arising from seismic loading to the two-cell RC box tunnel. Especially, the paper focuses on establishing a simplified methodology to derive fragility curves which are an indispensable ingredient of seismic fragility assessment. In consideration of soil-structure interaction (SSI) effect, the ground response acceleration method for buried structure (GRAMBS) is used in the proposed approach to estimate the dynamic response behavior of the structures. In addition, the damage states of tunnels are identified by conducting the pushover analyses and Latin Hypercube sampling (LHS) technique is employed to consider the uncertainties associated with design variables. To illustrate the concepts described, a numerical analysis is conducted and fragility curves are developed for a large set of artificially generated ground motions satisfying a design spectrum. The seismic fragility curves are represented by two-parameter lognormal distribution function and its two parameters, namely the median and log-standard deviation, are estimated using the maximum likelihood estimates (MLE) method.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.397-407
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• 2017

To estimate the structural seismic demand, some methods are based on an equivalent linear system such as the Capacity Spectrum Method, the N2 method and the Equivalent Linearization method. Another category, widely investigated, is based on displacement correction such as the Displacement Coefficient Method and the Coefficient Method. Its basic concept consists in converting the elastic linear displacement of an equivalent Single Degree of Freedom system (SDOF) into a corresponding inelastic displacement. It relies on adequate modifying or reduction coefficient such as the inelastic deformation ratio which is usually developed for systems with known ductility factors ($C_{\mu}$) and ($C_R$) for known yield-strength reduction factor. The present paper proposes a rational approach which estimates this inelastic deformation ratio for SDOF bilinear systems by rigorous nonlinear analysis. It proposes a new inelastic deformation ratio which unifies and combines both $C_{\mu}$ and $C_R$ effects. It is defined by the ratio between the inelastic and elastic maximum lateral displacement demands. Three options are investigated in order to express the inelastic response spectra in terms of: ductility demand, yield strength reduction factor, and inelastic deformation ratio which depends on the period, the post-to-preyield stiffness ratio, the yield strength and the peak ground acceleration. This new inelastic deformation ratio ($C_{\eta}$) is describes the response spectra and is related to the capacity curve (pushover curve): normalized yield strength coefficient (${\eta}$), post-to-preyield stiffness ratio (${\alpha}$), natural period (T), peak ductility factor (${\mu}$), and the yield strength reduction factor ($R_y$). For illustrative purposes, instantaneous ductility demand and yield strength reduction factor for a SDOF system subject to various recorded motions (El-Centro 1940 (N/S), Boumerdes: Algeria 2003). The method accuracy is investigated and compared to classical formulations, for various hysteretic models and values of the normalized yield strength coefficient (${\eta}$), post-to-preyield stiffness ratio (${\alpha}$), and natural period (T). Though the ductility demand and yield strength reduction factor differ greatly for some given T and ${\eta}$ ranges, they remain take close when ${\eta}>1$, whereas they are equal to 1 for periods $T{\geq}1s$.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.191-202
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• 2022

Markov envelope as a theoretical solution of the parabolic wave equation with Markov approximation for the von Kármán type random medium is studied and approximated with the convolution of two probability density functions (pdf) of normal and gamma distributions considering the previous studies on the applications of Radiative Transfer Theory (RTT) and the analysis results of earthquake records. Through the approximation with gamma pdf, the constant shape parameter of 2 was determined regardless of the source distance r_o. This finding means that the scattering process has the property of an inhomogeneous single-scattering Poisson process, unlike the previous studies, which resulted in a homogeneous multiple-scattering Poisson process. Approximated Markov envelope can be treated as the normalized mean square (MS) envelope for ground acceleration because of the flat source Fourier spectrum. Based on such characteristics, the path duration is estimated from the approximated MS envelope and compared to the empirical formula derived by Boore and Thompson. The results clearly show that the path duration increases proportionately to r_o^1/2-r_o², and the peak value of the RMS envelope is attenuated by exp (-0.0033r_o), excluding the geometrical attenuation. The attenuation slope for r_o≤100 km is quite similar to that of effective attenuation for shallow crustal earthquakes, and it may be difficult to distinguish the contribution of intrinsic attenuation from effective attenuation. Slowly varying dispersive delay, also called the medium effect, represented by regular pdf, governs the path duration for the source distance shorter than 100 km. Moreover, the diffraction term, also called the distance effect because of scattering, fully controls the path duration beyond the source distance of 300 km and has a steep gradient compared to the medium effect. Source distance 100-300 km is a transition range of the path duration governing effect from random medium to distance. This means that the scattering may not be the prime cause of peak attenuation and envelope broadening for the source distance of less than 200 km. Furthermore, it is also shown that normal distribution is appropriate for the probability distribution of phase difference, as asserted in the previous studies.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.141-152
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• 2015

The objective of this study is to estimate shear wave velocity of rockfill materials by making practical use of the micro-earthquake records which are ordinarily obtained at a domestic rockfill dam and to verify its applicability. Micro-earthquake records were obtained at the site of Heongseong dam and Soyanggang dam, which are the existing multi-purpose dams in Korea. In the previous study, the fundamental periods of each dam were already evaluated by analyzing the response spectrum of the observed records. In this study, numerical analyses varying shear moduli of rockfill zone were carried out using the acceleration histories measured at the abutment as input ground motions. From comparison between the fundamental periods calculated by numerical analyses and measured records, the shear wave velocities with depth were estimated. It is found that the effect of different earthquake events on shear wave velocity estimation for the target dam materials is negligible and the shear wave velocity can be consistently evaluated. Furthermore, comparing the shear wave velocity with the previous researchers' empirical relationships and field test results, applicability of suggested method is verified. Therefore, in case that it is impossible to conduct field tests and estimation is preliminary, the suggested method can be practically used.