• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.23 no.5
• /
• pp.473-491
• /
• 2022

The research investigates experimentally the effect of confinement on structural behavior at the ends of beam-column in reinforced concrete (RC) frames. In the experimental study, five specimens consisting of 1/3-scaled RC frames having single-bay, representing the traditional deficiencies of existing buildings constructed without receiving proper engineering service is investigated. The RC frame specimens were produced to represent most of the existing buildings in Turkey that have damage potential. To decrease the probable damage to the existing buildings exposed to earthquakes, the carbon Textile Reinforced Mortar (TRM) strengthening technique (fully wrapping) was used on the ends of the RC frame elements to increase the energy dissipation and deformation capacity. The specimens were tested under reversed cyclic lateral loading with constant axial loads. They were constructed satisfying the weak column-strong beam condition and consisting of low-strength concrete, such as compressive strength of 15 MPa. The test results were compared and evaluated considering stiffness, strength, energy dissipation capacity, structural damping, ductility, and damage propagation in detail. Comprehensive investigations of these experimental results reveal that the strengthening of a brittle frame with fully-TRM wrapping with non-anchored was effective in increasing the stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation capacities of RC bare frames. It was also observed that the frame-only-retrofitting with an infill wall is not enough to increase the ductility capacity. In this case, both the frame and infill wall must be retrofitted with TRM composite to increase the stiffness, lateral load carrying, ductility and energy dissipation capacities of RC frames. The presented strengthening method can be an alternative strengthening technique to enhance the seismic performance of existing or moderately damaged RC buildings.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.4C
• /
• pp.221-230
• /
• 2008

The George Massey immersed tunnel passes the Fraser River near Vancouver, Western Canada. The tunnel was founded on sandy soils and its behavior during earthquake was analyzed by an effective stress constitutive model called UBCSAND. This model is able to calculate pore pressure rise and resulting tunnel movements due to cyclic loading. Centrifuge tests conducted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) were used to verify the model performance. The centrifuge tests consisted of 2 models: Model 1 was designed for an original ground condition, Model 2 for a ground improvement by densification. In Model 1, large deformation of the tunnel was observed due to liquefaction of surrounding soil. Because of the densified zones around the tunnel the vertical and horizontal displacements of the tunnel in Model 2 was 50% less than Model 1. Measured excess pore pressures, accelerations, and displacements from centrifuge tests were in close agreement with the predictions of UBCSAND model. Therefore, the model can be used to predict seismic behavior of immersed tunnels on sandy soils and optimize liquefaction remediation methods.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.417-427
• /
• 2023

If the center of mass and center of stiffness or strength of a structure plan do not coincide, the structure is considered asymmetric. During an earthquake, in addition to lateral vibration, the structure experiences torsional vibration as well. Lateraltorsional coupling in asymmetric structures in the plan will increase lateral displacement at the ends of the structure plan and, as a result, uneven deformation demand in seismically resistant frames. The demand for displacement in resistant frames depends on the magnitude of transitional displacement to rotational displacement in the plan and the correlation between these two. With regard to the inability to eliminate the asymmetrical condition due to various reasons, such as architectural issues, this study has attempted to use supplemental viscous dampers to decrease the correlation between lateral and torsional acceleration or displacement in the plan. This results in an almost even demand for lateral deformation and acceleration of seismic resistant frames. On this basis, using the concept of Torsional Balance, adequate distribution of viscous dampers for the decrease of this correlation was determined by transferring the "Empirical Center of Balance" (ECB) to the geometrical center of the structure plan and thus obtaining an equal mean square value of displacement and acceleration of the plan edges. This study analyzed stiff and flexible torsional structures with one-way and two-way mass asymmetry in the Opensees software. By implementing the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, the optimum formation of dampers for controlling lateral displacement and acceleration is determined. The results indicate that with the appropriate distribution of viscous dampers, not only does the lateral displacement and acceleration of structure edges decrease but the lateral displacement or acceleration of the structure edges also become equal. It is also observed that the optimized center of viscous dampers for control of displacement and acceleration of structure depends on the amount of mass eccentricity, the ratio of uncoupled torsional-to-lateral frequency, and the amount of supplemental damping ratio. Accordingly, distributions of viscous dampers in the structure plan are presented to control the structure's torsion based on the parameters mentioned.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.92-101
• /
• 2012

Three-dimensional finite-difference simulation in a small-scale half-sphere basin with planar free-surface is performed for an arbitrary shear-dislocation point source. A new scheme to deal with free-surface boundary condition is presented. Then basin parameters are examined to understand main characteristics on ground-motion response in the basin. To analyze the frequency content of ground motion in the basin, spectral amplitudes are compared with each other for four sites inside and outside the basin. Also particle motions for those sites are examined to find which kind of wave plays a dominant role in ground-motion response. The results show that seismic energy is concentrated on a marginal area of the basin far from the source. This focusing effect is mainly due to constructive interference of the direct Swave with basin-edge induced surface waves. Also, ground-motion amplification over the deepest part of the basin is relatively lower than that above shallow basin edge. In the small-scale basin with relatively simple bedrock interface, therefore, the ground-motion amplification may be more related to the source azimuth or direction of the incident waves into the basin rather than depth of it.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
• /
• v.14 no.5
• /
• pp.503-516
• /
• 2012

Rock mass rating (RMR) is the key factor when designing the appropriate support pattern of tunnel projects. Borehole drilling is usually performed along the tunnel route in order to determine the rock mass rating to be used for tunnel design. The rock mass rating at the non-boring region between boreholes is usually assessed through geophysical surveys such as electrical prospecting, seismic prospecting, etc. Many studies were carried out to find out the correlation between electrical resistivity and rock mass rating. However, most researches were aimed at obtaining the relationship between the two parameters utilizing experimental results obtained from laboratory tests or electrical prospectings. In this paper, efforts were made to analyze and obtain relationships between the electrical resistivity obtained from in-situ electrical resistivity logging data and the rock mass rating. Correlation studies using field data showed that the electrical resistivity is highly correlated with the rock mass rating with the determination coefficient more than 90%. The correlation analysis was also carried out between RMR classification parameters and the electrical resistivity. It was shown that the correlation between the condition of discontinuities and the electrical resistivity was very high with the determination coefficient more than 80%; that between the groundwater condition and the electrical resistivity was very low with the determination coefficient less than 57%.

• Land and Housing Review
• /
• v.2 no.3
• /
• pp.287-297
• /
• 2011

This paper presents the results of performance verification tests of the isolated flat plate apartment building with the laminated rubber bearings. The shaking table test is carried out in CABR(China Academy of Building Research) with two 1/10 scale isolation and non-isolation models under 4 excitation waves. The shaking table test is proceeding from x axis, y axis and x+y axis with different amplitude of acceleration values. The results show that, to non-isolated model, the natural vibration period is remarkably decreased and entered non-linear condition after moderate earthquake. Its accelerations become lager with increasing storey number and completely collapsed under large earthquake. The inter-storey shifts largely exceed the limit values of regulated displacement angles. But to isolated model, the natural vibration period of isolated modal is almost the same in all conditions and still in its elastic condition. The earthquake loading is greatly reduced and the accelerations of superstructure are greatly reduced. The inter-storey drifts are very small and can be neglected. The isolated model is in translational state and can be seen as a rigid whole. The displacements of isolation layer are in the allowable range. This experiment demonstrates that the seismic isolation is very effective to mitigate the influence of earthquake on structures and it is possible to increase the serviceability due to decrease the floor acceleration. facilities from their good states that is superior to non-isolated structure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.393-402
• /
• 1995

The structural analysis of the reactor coolant system mainly consist of too fields. The one is the static analysis considering the impact of pressure and temperature built up during normal operation. The other is the dynamic analysis to estimate the impact of postulated events such as the seismic loads or postulated branch line pipe breaks event. Since the most important goal of the RCS structural analysis is to prove the safety of the RCS during normal operation or postulated events, a widely proven theory having enough conservatism is adopted. The load occurring on the RCS during normal operation is considered as the basic design loading condition throughout whole plant life time. The most typical characteristic of the RCS during normal operation is the thermal expansion of the RCS caused by reactor coolant with high temperature and pressure. Therefore, the exact estimation on the thermal movement of the RCS is needed to get more clear understanding on the thermal movement behavior of the RCS. In this study, the general structural analysis concept and modeling method to evaluate the thermal movement of the RCS under the normal plant operation condition are presented. To discuss the validation of the suggested analysis, analysis results are compared with the measured data which ore referred from the standardized 1000 MWe PWR plant under construction.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.32 no.11
• /
• pp.73-81
• /
• 2016

Recently, the construction of onshore waste landfill sites has been studied due to the increase of waste and geosynthetics are widely utilized to enforce and protect waste landfill. Geosynthetics comprises the interface with soil and the seismic behavior and stability mostly depend on the dynamic shear behavior of the geosynthetic-soil interface. Therefore, the understanding of dynamic shear behavior and dynamic relative displacement of the interface is critical. The dynamic shear behavior of the interface is affected by surrounding conditions and loading and shows very complicated response, and, it is difficult to study theoretically. In this study, laboratory test to investigate dynamic relative displacement is performed under chemical condition. Dynamic interface apparatus is utilized and cyclic simple shear tests are conducted under short term (60 days of submerging period) and long term (840 days of submerging period) conditions. Consequently, relative displacement of the interface shows the largest values under acid condition, which means more severe damage of the interface.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.29 no.6
• /
• pp.499-512
• /
• 2016

The boundary reaction method(BRM) is a substructure time domain method, it removes global iterations between frequency and time domain analyses commonly required in the hybrid approaches, so that it operates as a two-step uncoupled method. The BRM offers a two-step method as follows: (1) the calculation of boundary reaction forces in the frequency domain on an interface of linear and nonlinear regions, (2) solving the wave radiation problem subjected to the boundary reaction forces in the time domain. In the time domain analysis, the near-field soil is modeled to simulate the wave radiation problem. This paper evaluates the performance of the BRM according to modeling extent of near-field soil for the nonlinear SSI analysis of base-isolated NPP structure. For this purpose, parametric studies are performed using equivalent linear SSI problems. The accuracy of the BRM solution is evaluated by comparing the BRM solution with that of conventional SSI seismic technique. The numerical results show that the soil condition affects the modeling range of near-field soil for the BRM analysis as well as the size of the basemat. Finally, the BRM is applied for the nonlinear SSI analysis of a base-isolated NPP structure to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the method.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.37 no.7
• /
• pp.13-23
• /
• 2021

If roads, bridges, buildings, etc. are built on the ground with soft clay or organic soil, there may be a lot of problems in geotechnical engineering such as settlement and stability due to the large settlement and lack of bearing capacity. In extreme cases, it may appear due to shear failure or collapse of the constructed structure, so a ground improvement method is indispensable to increase the strength of the ground and to suppress settlement. In this study, the settlement according to each groundwater level condition was analyzed using the measurement results for the groundwater level conditions, one of the important factors in predicting the settlement in dredged and reclaimed ground, and the groundwater level conditions applied to the settlement analysis were proposed by comparing it with settlement generated 5 years after construction. As a result of the analysis, it is judged that it is reasonable to apply the measured groundwater level during construction and the low water ordinary neap tide (L.W.O.N.T) during load application for the groundwater level in the settlement analysis. In addition, in the case of the dredged and reclaimed ground, it is estimated that the water pressure acting on the clay layer is nonlinear, as the result of the observations of the head of water at the observation points above and below the in-situ clay layer were different.