• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.48-54
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• 2016

Pilotis are support columns that lift a building above the ground. Thus, they can elevate the lowest floor to the secondfloor level and, in Korea, are used to leav a parking area below multifamily housing. However, if there is a fire in the piloti area, the cars and main entrance door are wrapped in flames. Due to the inflammability of the materials, the combustion of the cars and insulation at the ceiling of the pilotis, having a high heat release rate, can quickly destroy the front entrance of the building and spread heat, flames and a poisonous gas to the stairs and elevator pit. Therefore, the fire can quickly spread to the whole building, putting the lives of the residents in danger. This study was an in-depth accidental case study of the "Uijeongbu Fire Accident" that killed 5 residents and injured 139 others. The study identified the relationships between the fire at the piloti structure of multifamily housing and the vulnerability of this structure and its inherent weaknesses.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.103-111
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• 2018

This study examines the seismic failure of RC low-rise building structures having irregularities at the ground story during the 15 November 2017 Pohang, Korea, earthquake, $M_w=5.4$, which is the second strongest since the government began monitoring them in 1978 in South Korea. Some 2,000 private houses were damaged or destroyed in this earthquake. Particularly, serious damage to the piloti story of RC low-rise residential building structures of fewer than five stories was observed within 3 km of the epicenter with brittle shear failure of columns and walls due to severe torsional behavior. Buildings below six stories constructed before 2005 did not have to comply with seismic design requirements, so confinement detailing of columns and walls also led to inadequate performance. However, some buildings constructed after 2005 were damaged at the flexible side of the piloti story due to the high torsional irregularity. Based on these results, this study focuses on the problems of the seismic torsion design approach in current building codes.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.59-67
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• 2018

Various pilotis are installed in the lower part of high rise buildings. Strong winds can generate sudden airflow around the pilotis, which can cause unexpected internal airflow changes and may cause damage to the exterior of the piloti ceiling. The present study investigates the characteristics of peak wind pressure coefficient for the design of piloti ceiling exteriors by conducting wind pressure tests on high rise buildings equipped with penetration-type and end-type pilotis in urban and suburban areas. The minimum peak wind pressure coefficient for penetration-type piloti ceilings ranges from -2.0 to -3.3. Minimum peak wind pressure coefficient in urban areas was 30% larger than in suburban areas. In end-type piloti ceilings, maximum peak wind-pressure coefficient ranges from 0.5 to 1.9, and minimum peak wind-pressure coefficient ranges from -1.3 to -3.6. With changes in building height, peak wind pressure coefficient decreases as the aspect ratio increases. Peak wind-pressure coefficient increases with taller pilotis. On the other hand, when piloti height decreases, the absolute value of the minimum peak wind pressure coefficient increases.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.60-67
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• 2021

According to the 「Guidelines of Structural Design for Piloti Building」 of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (2018), the natural period of middle and low rise building of upper-walled lower frame type, such as the domestic multiplex house in piloti style, is suggested for safety to apply the existing code formula of the wall structure. However, the current code formula of the wall structure was provided based on actual measurement of high-rise wall-type structures that mainly exhibit bending behavior. So it is considered that it is not suitable for a piloti-type house with four stories or less, where the wall behaves in shear. See also Park et al. (2000) confirmed that the effect of the lower frame part is greater than that of the upper wall part in the natural period of complex structures with 10 or more floors through analytical studies. Therefore, in this study, in order to examine the effect of the lower frame on the natural period of the middle and low-rise piloti structure, the estimation of natural period by the finite element analysis, approximation formula and ccurrent code formula was performed for the target structures with the shear and flexural stiffness of the upper wall and the shear stiffness of the lower frame as variables. As result, it was found that the change in the shear stiffness of the lower frame had a greater effect on the natural period of the whole building than the change in the bending or shear stiffness of the upper wall.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.307-314
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• 2018

It became clear that Korean peninsula is not a safe region anymore from an earthquake disaster after Gyeongju and Pohang Earthquake in 2016-2017. Unfortunately, building industry in Korea has not been well prepared for an earthquake disaster and the following problems exist. First, the rate of buildings with proper seismic performance is relatively low. Second, the number of piloti buildings which are vulnerable to earthquake and fire disaster has increased recently. Third, the proportion of small-scale buildings excluded from the application of the building law for securing safety is too high. Fourth, widespread corruption and poor construction impede safety. Therefore, measures to prepare for earthquake disaster are as follows. First, methods of reinforcing building structures and reducing the seismic load acting on a building should be utilized in order to secure the insufficient seismic performance of buildings vulnerable to earthquakes. Second, whistleblowers should be encouraged and protected to prevent defective construction due to corruption. To this end, whistleblowers should be recognized as an effective means of protecting public interest not the traitor to the organization.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.5199-5205
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• 2013

Despite the increasing incidence of earthquakes in recent years, many of the existing buildings don't have appropriate seismic performance due to the deterioration or structural characteristics. In particular, a piloti-type RC shear wall structure, which is one of the building types in Korea, is highly vulnerable to earthquakes due to a great lack of shear function that can resist lateral force caused by the earthquake since the first floor is mostly soft story, and it is classified as weak story. In this regard, a study on the damage state criterion for the piloti-type RC shear wall structures was carried out. The capacity spectrum was calculated through the structural analysis by selecting typical type of buildings of shear wall systems, and damage state criterion was defined based on the shape of the capacity spectrum.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.45-46
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• 2018

The fire at the pilotis parking lot shows the fire propagation paths that are propagated to the ceiling materials and insulation materials and propagated through the external walls. In addition, there is a high risk of fire caused by vehicles with high combustion loads spreading throughout the parking lot. In particular, the omission of the ceiling materials at the parking lot in recent fire cases has contributed to the spread of the fire. In this study, the combustion performance of the ceiling materials between the insulation material and the vehicle is considered to prevent fire from spreading. Based on field research, the type of ceiling material used in the piloti structure showed that SMC ceiling materials have the highest percentage. Combustion performance test (KS F ISO 5660-1) was carried out on the SMC ceiling materials and the AL ceiling materials to review the fire safety of the ceiling finish based on the field investigation. The results of the test showed that the SMC ceiling materials has a THR 28.973[MJ/㎡] and peek HRR 273.93 [kW/㎡], while the AL ceiling material has a THR 0.584[MJ/㎡] and peek HRR 15.215[kW/㎡].

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2001.09a
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• pp.407-414
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• 2001

The severe shortage of the available sites in the highly developed downtown area in Korea necessitates the construction of high-rise buildings which meet the need of residence and commercial activity simultaneously. The objective of this study is to investigate the seismic performance of this type of building structures. For this purpose, two 1 :12 scale 17-story reinforced concrete model structures were constructed according to the similitude law, in which the upper 15 stories have a bearing-wall system while the lower 2-story frames have two different layouts of the plan The one is a moment-resisting frame system and the other is a moment-resisting frame system with a infilled shear wall. Then, this model was subjected to a series of earthquake excitations. The test results show that the existence of shear wall reduced the shear deformation at the piloti frame, but has almost the negligible effect on the reduction of the overturning-moment angle.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.225-232
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• 2006

Three building structures haying piloti frames in the lower two stories were selected as prototypes and were analyzed using nonlinear static analysis to investigate the seismic capacity of these buildings. The first one has a symmetrical moment resisting frame (Model 1), the second has an infilled shear wall in the central frame (Model 2), and the third has an infilled shear wall only in one of exterior frames (Model 3), The analytical results were compared with those of shaking table tests with regards to the overstrength and ductility of the irregular buildings. Infilled shear wall in Model 2 and Model 3 induced large overstrength factors, 6.8 and 6.0, respectively, which are about two times larger than that of Model 1, 3.5. The displacement ductility ratio in Model 2 was only 2.5, due to the shear failure of wall in the piloti stories, whereas those of Model 1 and Model 3 reached 3.2.

• 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+).