• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.35-47
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• 2003

Seismic ground motion can vary significantly over distances comparable to the length of a majority of highway bridges on multiple supports. This paper presents results of fragility analysis of two actual highway bridges under ground motion with spatial variation. Ground motion time histories are artificially generated with different amplitudes, phases, as well as frequency contents at different support locations. Monte Carlo simulation is performed to study dynamic responses of the bridges under these ground motions. The effect of spatial variation on the seismic response is systematically examined and the resulting fragility curves are compared with those under identical support ground motion. This study shows that ductility demands for the bridge columns can be underestimated if the bridge is analyzed using identical support ground motions rather than differential support ground motions. Fragility curves are developed as functions of different measures of ground motion intensity including peak ground acceleration(PGA), peak ground velocity(PGV), spectral acceleration(SA), spectral velocity(SV) and spectral intensity(SI). This study represents a first attempt to develop fragility curves under spatially varying ground motion and provides information useful for improvement of the current seismic design codes so as to account for the effects of spatial variation in the seismic design of long-span bridges.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.215-227
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• 2018

Supplemental passive control devices are widely considered as an important tool to mitigate the dynamic response of a building under seismic excitation. Nevertheless, a systematic method for strategically placing dampers in the buildings is not prescribed in building codes and guidelines. Many deterministic and stochastic methods have been proposed by previous researchers to investigate the optimum distribution of the viscous dampers in the steel frames. However, the seismic performances of the retrofitted buildings that are under large earthquake intensity levels or near collapse state have not been evaluated by any seismic research. Recent years, an increasing number of studies utilize genetic algorithms (GA) to explore the complex engineering optimization problems. GA interfaced with nonlinear response history (NRH) analysis is considered as one of the most powerful and popular stochastic methods to deal with the nonlinear optimization problem of damper distribution. In this paper, the effectiveness and the efficiency of GA on optimizing damper distribution are first evaluated by strong ground motions associated with the collapse failure. A practical optimization framework using GA and NRH analysis is proposed for optimizing the distribution of the fluid viscous dampers within the moment resisting frames (MRF) regarding the improvements of large drifts under intensive seismic context. Both a 10-storey and a 20-storey building are involved to explore higher mode effect. A far-fault and a near-fault earthquake environment are also considered for the frames under different seismic intensity levels. To evaluate the improvements obtained from the GA optimization regarding the collapse performance of the buildings, Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) is conducted and comparisons are made between the GA damper distribution and stiffness proportional damping distribution on the collapse probability of the retrofitted frames.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.4 no.3 s.11
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• pp.19-25
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• 2000

In order to prevent secondary disaster such as gas explosion which comes after a devastating magnitude earthquake, the seismic monitoring and transmission system for natural gas governor station was developed. To measure ground motions precisely and operate the seismic monitoring system efficiently, the position and method of accelerometer installation were recommended by the analysis of ground noise patterns of governor station. For making a decision on prompt shut-off of gas supplies in the event of a great earthquake, the real-time calculation algorithm of PGA(Peak Ground Acceleration) and SI(Spectrum Intensity) were developed and it has been implemented in the seismic monitoring and transmission system.

• 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.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.873-889
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• 2015

In civil engineering, probabilistic seismic risk assessment is used to predict the economic damage to a lifeline system of possible future earthquakes. The results are used to plan mitigation measures and to strengthen the structures where necessary. Instead, after an earthquake public authorities need mathematical models that compute: the damage caused by the earthquake to the individual vulnerable components and links, and the global behavior of the lifeline system. In this study, a framework that was developed and used for prediction purpose is modified to assess the consequences of an earthquake in quasi real-time after such earthquake happened. This is possible because nowadays entire seismic regions are instrumented with tight networks of strong motion stations, which provide and broadcast accurate intensity measure maps of the event to the public within minutes. The framework uses the broadcasted map and calculates the damage to the lifeline system and its component in quasi real-time. The results give the authorities the most likely status of the system. This helps emergency personnel to deal with the damage and to prioritize visual inspections and repairs. A highway transportation network is used as a test bed but any lifeline system can be analyzed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.187-201
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• 2004

A shaking table test on a three-story one-bay steel frame model with metallic yield dampers and their parallel connection with oil dampers is carried out to study the dynamic characteristics and seismic performance of the energy dissipation system. It is found from the test that the combined energy dissipation system has favorable reducing vibration effects on structural displacement, and the structural peak acceleration can not evidently be reduced under small intensity seismic excitations, but in most cases the vibration reduction effect is very good under large intensity seismic excitations. Test results also show that stiffness of the energy dissipation devices should match their damping. Dynamic analysis method and mechanics models of these two dampers are proposed. In the analysis method, the force-displacement relationship of the metallic yield damper is represented by an elastic perfectly plastic model, and the behavior of the oil damper is simulated by a velocity and displacement relative model in which the contributions of the oil damper to the damping force and stiffness of the system are considered. Validity of the analytical model and the method is verified through comparison between the results of the shaking table test and numerical analysis.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.133-141
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• 2013

This paper presents the seismic evaluation and prediction of a damaged piloti-type Reinforced Concrete (RC) building before and after post-retrofitting under successive earthquakes. For considering realistic successive earthquakes, the past records measured at the same station were combined. In this study, the damaged RC building due to the first earthquake was retrofitted with a buckling-restrained brace (BRB) before the second earthquake occurred. Nonlinear Time History Analysis (NTHA) was performed under the scaled intensity of the successive ground motions. Based on the extensive structural response data obtained form from the NTHA, the fragility relationships between the ground shaking intensity and the probability of reaching a pre-determined limit state was were derived. In addition, The the fragility curves of the pre-damaged building without and with the BRBs were employed to evaluate the effect of the successive earthquakes and the post-retrofit effect. Through the seismic assessment subjected to the successive records, it was observed that the seismic performance of the pre-damaged building was significantly affected by the severity of the damage from the first earthquake damages and the hysteresis behavior of the retrofit element.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.397-404
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• 2012

Fragility curves show the probability of a system reaching a limit state as a function of some measure of seismic intensity. To obtain fragility curves of six and twelve story staggered wall structures with middle corridor, incremental dynamic analyses were carried out using twenty two pairs of earthquake records, and their failure probabilities for various intensity of seismic load were investigated. The performances of staggered wall structures with added columns along the central corridor and the structures with their first story walls replaced by columns were compared with those of the regular staggered wall structures. Based on the analysis results it was concluded that staggered wall structures with central columns have the largest safety margin for the same level of seismic load.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.860-868
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• 2018

This article presents a new design of earthquake instrumentation that is suitable for quick decision-making after the seismic event at the nuclear power plant (NPP). The main objective of this work is to ensure more availability of the NPP by expediting walk-down period when the seismic wave is incident. In general, the decision-making to restart the NPP after the seismic event requires more than 1 month if an earthquake exceeds operating basis earthquake level. It affects to the plant availability significantly. Unnecessary shutdown can be skipped through quick assessments of operating basis earthquake, safe shutdown earthquake events, and damage status to structure, system, and components. Multidecision parameters such as cumulative absolute velocity, peak ground acceleration, Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, floor response spectrum, and cumulative fatigue are discussed. The implementation scope on the field-programmable gate array platform of this work is limited to cumulative absolute velocity, peak ground acceleration, and Modified Mercalli Intensity. It can ensure better availability of the plant through integrated decision-making process by automatic assessment of NPP structure, system, and components.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.383-396
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• 2013

In earthquake engineering area, the critical excitation method is an approach to find the most severe earthquake subjected to the structure. However, given some earthquake constraints, such as intensity and power, the critical excitations have spectral density functions that often resonate with the first modes of the structure. This paper presents a non-stationary critical excitation that is capable of exciting the main modes of the structure using a non-uniform power spectral density (PSD) that is similar to natural earthquakes. Thus, this paper proposes a new method to estimate the power and intensity of earthquakes. Finally, a new method for the linear seismic design of structures using a modified non-stationary critical excitation is proposed.