• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2017

After Kyeongju earthquake occurred in September 12, 2016, the seismic safety of nuclear power plants became important issue in our country. The seismic safety of nuclear power plant against beyond design basis earthquake became very important to secure the public safety. In this paper, the current status of the seismic safety assessment methodology is reviewed and some aspects for the reliability improvement of the seismic safety assessment results are proposed. Seismic margin analysis and probabilistic seismic safety assessment have been used for the seismic safety evaluation of a nuclear power pant. The basic procedure and the related issues and proposals for the probabilistic seismic safety assessment are investigated.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.101-108
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• 2019

The seismic safety of nuclear power plants has always been emphasized by the effects of accidents. In general, the seismic safety evaluation of nuclear power plants carries out a seismic probabilistic safety assessment. The current probabilistic safety assessment assumes that damage to the structure, system, and components (SSCs) occurs independently to each other or perfect dependently to each other. In case of earthquake events, the failure event occurs with the correlation due to the correlation between the seismic response of the SSCs and the seismic performance of the SSCs. In this study, the EEMS (External Event Mensuration System) code is developed which can perform the seismic probabilistic safety assessment considering correlation. The developed code is verified by comparing with the multiplier n, which is for calculating the joint probability of failure, which is proposed by Mankamo. It is analyzed the changes in seismic fragility curves and seismic risks with correlation. As a result, it was confirmed that the seismic fragility curves and seismic risk change according to the failure correlation coefficient. This means that it is important to select an appropriate failure correlation coefficient in order to perform a seismic probabilistic safety assessment. And also, it was confirmed that carrying out the seismic probabilistic safety assessment in consideration of the seismic correlation provides more realistic results, rather than providing conservative or non-conservative results comparing with that damage to the SSCs occurs independently.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.389-398
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• 2018

The seismic isolation system makes a structure isolated from ground motions to protect the structure from seismic events. Seismic isolation techniques have been implemented in full-scale buildings and bridges because of their simplicity, economic effectiveness, inherent stability and reliability. As for the responses of an isolated structure due to seismic events, it is well known that the most uncertain aspects are the seismic loading itself and structural properties. Due to the randomness of earthquakes and uncertainty of structures, seismic response distributions of an isolated structure are needed when evaluating the seismic fragility assessment (or probabilistic seismic safety assessment) of an isolated structure. Seismic response time histories are useful and often essential elements in its design or evaluation stage. Thus, a large number of non-linear dynamic analyses should be performed to evaluate the seismic performance of an isolated structure. However, it is a monumental task to gather the design or evaluation information of the isolated structure from too many seismic analyses, which is impractical. In this paper, a new methodology that can evaluate the seismic fragility assessment of an isolated structure is proposed by using stochastic response database, which is a device that can estimate the seismic response distributions of an isolated structure without any seismic response analyses. The seismic fragility assessment of the isolated nuclear power plant is performed using the proposed methodology. The proposed methodology is able to evaluate the seismic performance of isolated structures effectively and reduce the computational efforts tremendously.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.8 no.6 s.40
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• pp.31-43
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• 2004

Seismic risk assessment of bridge is presented using fragility curves which represent the probability of damage of a structure virsus the peak ground acceleration. In theseismic fragility analysis, the structural damage is defined using the rotational ductility at the base of the bridge pier, which is obtained through nonlinear dynamic analysis for various input earthquakes. For the assessment of seismic risk of bridge, peak ground accelerations are obatined for various return periods from the seismic hazard map of Korea, which enables to calculate the probability density function of peak ground acceleration. Combining the probability density function of peak ground acceleration and the seismic fragility analysis, seismic risk assessment is performed. In this study, seismic fragility analysis is developed as a function of not the surface motion which the bridge actually suffers, but the rock outcrop motion which the aseismic design code is defined on, so that further analysis for the seismic hazard assessment may become available. Besides, the effects of the friction pot bearings and the friction pendulum bearings on the seismic fragility and risk analysis are examined. Lastly, three regions in Korea are considered and compared in the seismic risk assessment.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.03a
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• pp.118-125
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• 2003

Seismic damage assessment program for containment structure is developed. The program has been established through the combination of inelastic seismic analysis program and 3-D animation program. Damage indices at finite element level and structural level have been introduced for the seismic damage assessment. The seismic damage assessment program makes it possible to analyze in real-time the actual resistance capacity and damage level of containment structure. It will be expected that the program enables to establish the measures more quickly under the earthquake event.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.653-663
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• 2017

A seismic margin assessment evaluates how much margin exists for the system under beyond design basis earthquake events. Specifically, the seismic margin for the entire system is evaluated by utilizing a systems analysis based on the sub-system and component seismic fragility data. Each seismic fragility curve is obtained by using empirical, experimental, and/or numerical simulation data. The systems analysis is generally performed by employing a fault tree analysis. However, the current practice has clear limitations in that it cannot deal with the uncertainties of basic components and accommodate the newly observed data. Therefore, in this paper, we present a Bayesian-based seismic margin assessment that is conducted using seismic fragility data and fault tree analysis including Bayesian inference. This proposed approach is first applied to the pooltype nuclear research reactor system for the quantitative evaluation of the seismic margin. The results show that the applied approach can allow updating by considering the newly available data/information at any level of the fault tree, and can identify critical scenarios modified due to new information. Also, given the seismic hazard information, this approach is further extended to the real-time risk evaluation. Thus, the proposed approach can finally be expected to solve the fundamental restrictions of the current method.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2918-2927
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• 2020

This paper proposes a simplified elastic-plastic analysis procedure using the penalty factors presented in the Code Case N-779 for strain-based fatigue assessment of nuclear safety class 1 components under severe seismic loads such as safety shutdown earthquake and beyond design-basis earthquake. First, a simplified elastic-plastic analysis procedure for strain-based fatigue assessment of nuclear safety class 1 components under the severe seismic loads was proposed based on the analysis result for the simplified elastic-plastic analysis procedure in the Code Case N-779 and the stress categories corresponding to normal operation and seismic loads. Second, total strain amplitude was calculated directly by performing finite element cyclic elastic-plastic seismic analysis for a hot leg nozzle in pressurizer surge line subject to combined loading including deadweight, pressure, seismic inertia load, and seismic anchor motion, as well as was derived indirectly by applying the proposed analysis procedure to the finite element elastic stress analysis result for each load. Third, strain-based fatigue assessment was implemented by applying the strain-based fatigue acceptance criteria in the ASME B&PV Code, Sec. III, Subsec. NB, Article NB-3200 and by using the total strain amplitude values calculated. Last, the total strain amplitude and the fatigue assessment result corresponding to the simplified elastic-plastic analysis were compared with those using the finite element elastic-plastic seismic analysis results. As a result of the comparison, it was identified that the proposed analysis procedure can derive reasonable and conservative results.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.385-401
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• 2022

Uncertainty quantification is the most important challenge in seismic fragility assessment of structures. The precision increment of the quantification method leads to reliable results but at the same time increases the computational costs and the latter will be so undesirable in cases such as reliability-based design optimization which includes numerous probabilistic seismic analyses. Accordingly, the authors' effort has been put on the development and validation of an approach that has reduced computational cost in seismic fragility assessment. In this regard, it is necessary to apply the appropriate methods for consideration of two categories of uncertainties consisting of uncertainties related to the ground motions and structural characteristics, separately. Also, cable-stayed bridges have been specifically selected because as a result of their complexity and the according time-consuming seismic analyses, reducing the computations corresponding to their fragility analyses is worthy of studying. To achieve this, the fragility assessment of three case studies is performed based on existing and proposed approaches, and a comparative study on the efficiency in the estimation of seismic responses. For this purpose, statistical validation is conducted on the seismic demand and fragility resulting from the mentioned approaches, and through a comprehensive interpretation, sufficient arguments for the acceptable errors of the proposed approach are presented. Finally, this study concludes that the combination of the Capacity Spectrum Method (CSM) and Uniform Design Sampling (UDS) in advanced proposed forms can provide adequate accuracy in seismic fragility estimation at a significantly reduced computational cost.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.801-820
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• 2015

The seismic sequence which hit the Northern Italian territory in 2012 produced extensive damage to reinforced concrete (RC) precast buildings typically adopted as industrial facilities. The considered damaged buildings are constituted by one-storey precast structures with RC columns connected to the ground by means of isolated socket foundations. The roof structural layout is composed of pre-stressed RC beams supporting pre-stressed RC floor elements, both designed as simply supported beams. The observed damage pattern, already highlighted in previous earthquakes, is mainly related to insufficient connection strength and ductility or to the absence of mechanical devices, being the connections designed neglecting seismic loads or neglecting displacement and rotation compatibility between adjacent elements. Following the vulnerabilities emerged in past seismic events, the paper investigates the seismic performance of industrial facilities typical of the Italian territory. The European building code seismic assessment methodologies are presented and discussed, as well as the retrofit interventions required to achieve an appropriate level of seismic capacity. The assessment procedure and retrofit solutions are applied to a selected case study.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.265-273
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• 2023

This study proposes a methodology for the regional seismic risk assessment of structural damage to buildings in Korea based on evaluating individual buildings, considering inconsistency between the administrative district border and grid lines to define seismic hazard. The accuracy of seismic hazards was enhanced by subdividing the current 2km-sized grids into ones with a smaller size. Considering the enhancement of the Korean seismic design code in 2005, existing seismic fragility functions for seismically designed buildings are revised by modifying the capacity spectrum according to the changes in seismic design load. A seismic risk index in building damage is defined using the total damaged floor area considering building size differences. The proposed seismic risk index was calculated for buildings in 29 administrative districts in 'A' city in Korea to validate the proposed assessment algorithm and risk index. In the validation procedure, sensitivity analysis was performed on the grid size, quantitative building damage measure, and seismic fragility function update.