• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.235-244
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• 2018

The main function of the general hospital building is to provide medical facilities and service. However, damage to the non-structural elements such as architectural, medical, mechanical and other components will interrupt those functions after the earthquake. Especially, it is considered that, damage to the non-structural elements is a serious event because it is directly associated with the lives of patients. Therefore, this study evaluated whether the certain non-structural elements of general hospital building has the seismic performance to provide hospital medical services after the earthquake. The evaluation is conducted by selecting the non-structural elements used in general hospital which are sensitive to acceleration, such as cooling towers, air handler, MRI and CT. As a result, the non-structural elements located on the upper floor without suitable support method did not meet the performance objective. Therefore, adequate anchorage against the seismic event is required for such non-structural elements that are acceleration-sensitives.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.833-839
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• 2018

Dynamic behaviour of a tunnel is one of the most important issues for the safety and it is generally subjected to the seismic response of the surrounding soil. Relative displacement occurred in tunnel lining during earthquake produces severe damage. Generally, it concentrates at the connecting area when two tunnels are connected in the ground. A flexible segment is a useful device for the mitigation of seismic loads on tunnel lining. In this study, 1-g shaking table tests are performed to investigate the acceleration response for the verification of the effect of flexible segment and to determine the optimum location of the flexible segment for connected tunnels. Four different seismic waves are considered; as a result, peak acceleration is reduced to 49% in case that flexible segment is implemented adjacent to connecting area. It also exhibited that the mitigation of acceleration response is verified in all seismic waves. Additionally, 3-dimensional numerical analysis is performed to compare and verify the results. And the numerical results show good agreement to those of the experimental study.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.121-129
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• 2012

All contemporary seismic Codes have adopted smooth design acceleration response spectra, which have derived by statistical analysis of many elastic response spectra of natural accelerograms. The above smooth design spectra are characterized by two main branches, an horizontal branch that is 2.5 times higher than the peak ground acceleration, and a declining parabolic branch. According to Eurocode EN/1998, the period range of the horizontal, flat branch is extended from 0.1 s, for rock soils, up to 0.8 s for softer ones. However, from many natural recorded accelerograms of important earthquakes, the real spectral amplification factor appears to be much higher than 2.5 and this means that the spectrum leads to an unsafe seismic design of the structures. This point is an issue open to question and it is the object of the present study. In the present paper, the spectral amplification factor of the smooth design acceleration spectra is re-calculated on the grounds of a known "reliability index" for a desired probability of exceedance. As a pilot scheme, the seismic area of Greece is chosen, as it is the most seismically hazardous area in Europe. The accelerograms of the 82 most important earthquakes, which have occurred in Greece during the last 38 years, are used. The soil categories are taken into account according to EN/1998. The results that have been concluded from these data are compared with the results obtained from other strong earthquakes reported in the World literature.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2020

In 2016, an earthquake occurred at Gyeongju, Korea. At the Wolsong site, the observed peak ground acceleration was lower than the operating basis earthquake (OBE) level of Wolsong nuclear power plant. However, the measured spectral acceleration value exceeded the spectral acceleration of the operating-basis earthquake (OBE) level in some sections of the response spectrum, resulting in a manual shutdown of the nuclear power plant. Analysis of the response spectra shape of the Gyeongju earthquake motion showed that the high-frequency components are stronger than the response spectra shape used in nuclear power plant design. Therefore, the seismic performance evaluation of structures and equipment of nuclear power plants should be made to reflect the characteristics of site-specific earthquakes. In general, the floor response spectrum shape at the installation site or the generalized response spectrum shape is used for the seismic performance evaluation of structures and equipment. In this study, a generalized response spectrum shape is proposed for seismic performance evaluation of structures and equipment for nuclear power plants. The proposed response spectrum shape reflects the characteristics of earthquake motion in Korea through earthquake hazard analysis, and it can be applied to structures and equipment at various locations.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.425-434
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• 2019

It is important to ensure the seismic safety of pile-bent bridges constructed in areas with thick soft ground consisting of various soil layers against seismic motion in these layers. In this study, several synthetic seismic waves that are compatible with the seismic design spectrum for rock sites were generated, and the ground acceleration history of each soil layer was obtained based on ground analyses. Using these acceleration histories, each soil layer was modeled using equivalent linear springs, and multi-support excitation analyses were performed using the input motion obtained at each soil layer. Due to the nonlinear behavior of the soft soil layers, the intensity of the input ground motion was not amplified, which resulted in the elastic behavior of the bridge. In addition, inputting the acceleration history obtained from a particular layer simultaneously into all the ground springs reduced the response. Therefore, the seismic performance of this type of bridge might be overestimated if multi-excitation analysis is not performed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.293-315
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• 2016

Seismic isolation is often used in protecting mission-critical structures including hospitals, data centers, telecommunication buildings, etc. Such structures typically house vibration-sensitive equipment which has to provide continued service but may fail in case sustained accelerations during earthquakes exceed threshold limit values. Thus, peak floor acceleration is one of the two main parameters that control the design of such structures while the other one is peak base displacement since the overall safety of the structure depends on the safety of the isolation system. And in case peak base displacement exceeds the design base displacement during an earthquake, rupture and/or buckling of isolators as well as bumping against stops around the seismic gap may occur. Therefore, obtaining accurate peak floor accelerations and peak base displacement is vital. However, although nominal design values for isolation system and superstructure parameters are calculated in order to meet target peak design base displacement and peak floor accelerations, their actual values may potentially deviate from these nominal design values. In this study, the sensitivity of the seismic performance of structures equipped with linear and nonlinear seismic isolation systems to the aforementioned potential deviations is assessed in the context of a benchmark shear building under different earthquake records with near-fault and far-fault characteristics. The results put forth the degree of sensitivity of peak top floor acceleration and peak base displacement to superstructure parameters including mass, stiffness, and damping and isolation system parameters including stiffness, damping, yield strength, yield displacement, and post-yield to pre-yield stiffness ratio.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.143-153
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• 1981

Seismic risk maps in Korea are made using Korean historical and modern earthquake data. The risk maps made by several method are presented in contour line of vibratory ground motion(acceleration, velocity, and displacement). The method used are Kawasumi (1951), Kanai (1968), and Hsich et al (1975) method. The maps made by Kawasumi (1951) method represent the acceleration distribution ground and those by Kanai (1968) method show the acceleration, velocity, and displacement at bed rocks, The risk analysis by the method of Hsich et al (1975) shows the probability of acceleration at each of soft, medium and hard grounds in each tectonic province in Korea.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.197-208
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• 2019

The objective of this study is to propose new seismic intensity parameters based on the Hilbert spectrum and to associate them with the seismic damage potential. In recent years the assessment of even more seismic features derived from the seismic acceleration time-histories was associated with the structural damage. For a better insight into the complex seismic acceleration time-history, Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT) analysis is utilized for its processing, and the Hilbert spectrum is obtained. New proposed seismic intensity parameters based on the Hilbert spectrum are derived. The aim is to achieve a significant estimation of the seismic damage potential on structures from the proposed new intensity parameters confirmed by statistical methods. Park-Ang overall structural damage index is used to describe the postseismic damage status of structures. Thus, a set of recorded seismic accelerograms from all over the word is applied on a reinforced concrete frame structure, and the Park-Ang indices through nonlinear dynamic analysis are provided and considered subsequently as reference numerical values. Conventional seismic parameters, with well-known seismic structural damage interrelation, are evaluated for the same set of excitations. Statistical procedures, namely correlation study and multilinear regression analysis, are applied on the set of the conventional parameters and the set of proposed new parameters separately, to confirm their interrelation with the seismic structural damage. The regression models are used for the evaluation of the structural damage indices for every set of parameters, respectively. The predicted numerical values of the structural damage indices evaluated from the two sets of seismic intensity parameters are inter-compared with the reference values. The numerical results confirm the ability of the proposed Hilbert spectrum based new seismic intensity parameters to approximate the postseismic structural damage with a smaller Standard Error of Estimation than this accomplished of the conventional ones.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.712-722
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• 2020

Purpose: The damage from earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.0 or greater Korea has increased in South Korea. When a earthquake occurs, internal facilities and electric equipment besides urban structures will be damaged. Thus, in this paper, an earthquake-induced seismic isolation device with double slip fiction surfaces which can reduce the damage of electric power equipment such as distribution panel and then the seismic performance was evaluated. Method: To evaluate the seismic performance shaking table test was performed, a seismic performance comparison was performed according to the presence or absence of a seismic isolation device. The attenuation effect of the seismic isolation device are analyzed by comparing response acceleration and displacement for different frequencies and acceleration levels. Result: As a result of the test, the acceleration amplification was up to 42% less than when the seismic isolation device was installed in comparison to the other case without the seismic device. This is believed that the amplification energy has reduced because the displacement between the double slip friction surfaces of the seismic device play a role in dissipating the seismic energy. Conclusion: The seismic device with double slip friction surfaces has a greater earthquake attenuation effect in strong earthquakes than in weak ones, so the greater the frequency, the better the earthquake attenuation effect. Therefore, it is judged that earthquake energy can be decreased by applying to electric equipment such as distribution panels.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.483-494
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• 2016

Historical structures that function as a bridge from past to present are the cultural and social reflections of societies. Masonry bridges are one of the important historical structures. These bridges are vulnerable against to seismic action. In this study, linear and non-linear dynamic analyses of historical Nadir Bridge are assessed. The bridge is modelled with three dimensional finite elements. For the seismic effect, artificial acceleration records are generated considering the seismic characteristics of the region where the bridge is located. Seismic response of the bridge is investigated.