• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.103-109
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• 2009

The probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) calculates the probability of exceedance of a certain ground motion parameter within a finite period at a site of interest. PSHA is very robust in that it can account for the uncertainties in seismic source, wave passage effect, and seismic site effects and hence, it is the most widely used method in quantifying the future earthquake induced ground vibration. This paper evaluates the applicability of a new PSHA that is alleged to be able to reproduce the results of a conventional PSHA method, but generates a series of earthquake scenarios and corresponding ground motion time histories that are compatible with the scenarios. In the application, a 40,000 year period is simulated, during which 16,738 virtual earthquakes have occurred. The seismic hazard maps are generated from the outputs of the new PSHA. Comparisons with the maps generated by the conventional PSHA method demonstrated that the new PSHA can successfully reproduce the results of a conventional PSHA. The new PSHA may not be very meaningful in itself. However, the real advantage of the method is that it can be used to develop probabilisitic seismic site coefficients. The suite of generated ground motion time histories are used to develop probabilistic site coefficients in the companion paper.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.409-430
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• 2006

The aim of this study is to investigate the reliability of strong motion records processed by causal and acausal Butterworth filters in comparison to the results obtained from a synthetic accelerogram. For this purpose, the fault parallel component of the Bolu record of the Duzce earthquake is modeled with a sum of exponentially damped sinusoidal components. Noise-free velocities and displacements are then obtained by analytically integrating the synthetic acceleration model. The analytical velocity and displacement signals are used as a standard with which to judge the validity of the signals obtained by filtering with causal and acausal filters and numerically integrating the acceleration model. The results show that the acausal filters are clearly preferable to the causal filters due to the fact that the response spectra obtained from the acausal filters match the spectra obtained from the simulated accelerogram better than that obtained by causal filters. The response spectra are independent from the order of the filters and from the method of integration (whether analytical integration after a spline fit to the synthetic accelerogram or the trapezoidal rule). The response spectra are sensitive to the chosen corner frequency of both the causal and the acausal filters and also to the inclusion of the pads. Accurate prediction of the static residual displacement (SRD) is very important for structures traversing faults in the near-fault regions. The greatest adverse effect of the high pass filters is their removal of the SRD. However, the noise-free displacements obtained by double integrating the synthetic accelerogram analytically preserve the SRD. It is thus apparent that conventional high pass filters should not be used for processing near-fault strong-motion records although they can be reliably used for far-fault records if applied acausally. The ground motion parameters such as ARIAS intensity, HUSID plots, Housner spectral intensity and the duration of strong-motion are found to be insensitive to the causality of filters.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.79-87
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• 2017

Seismic analysis of local site conditions is fundamental for a reliable site seismic hazard assessment. It plays a major role in mitigation of seismic damage potential through the prediction of surface ground motion in terms of amplitude, frequency content and duration. Such analysis requires the determination of the transfer function, which is a simple tool for characterizing a soil profile by estimating its vibration frequencies and its amplification potential. In this study, numerical simulations are carried out and are then combined with a statistical study to allow the characterization of design sites classified by the Algerian Building Seismic Code (RPA99, ver 2003), by average transfer functions. The mean transfer functions are thereafter used to compute RPA99 average site factors. In this regard, coming up seismic fields are simulated based on Power Spectral Density Functions (PSDF) defined at the rock basement. Results are also used to compute average site factor where, actual and synthetic time histories are introduced. In absence of measurement data, it is found that the proposed approach can be used for a better soil characterization.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.175-185
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• 2021

This study strives to highlight the importance of considering the vertical ground motions (VGM) in the seismic evaluation of RC buildings. To this aim, IDA (Incremental Dynamic Analysis) is conducted on three code-based designed high-rise RC frame-core wall buildings using a suite of earthquake records comprising of significant VGMs. To unravel the significance of the VGM inclusion on the performance of the buildings, IDAs are conducted in two states (with and without the vertical component), and subsequently based on each analysis, fragility curves are developed. Non-simulated collapse criteria are used to determine the collapse state drift ratio and the area under the velocity spectrum (SIm) is taken into account as the intensity measure. The outcome of this study delineates that the inclusion of VGM leads to the increase in the collapse vulnerability of the structures as well as to the change in the pattern of inter-story drifts and failure mode of the buildings. The results suggested that it would be more conservative if the VGM is included in the seismic assessment and the fragility analysis of RC buildings.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.195-211
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• 2020

Among anti-seismic technologies, base isolation is a very effective means of mitigating damage to structural and nonstructural components, such as equipment. However, most seismic isolation systems are designed for mitigating only horizontal seismic responses because the realization of a vertical isolation system (VIS) is difficult. The difficulty is primarily due to conflicting isolation stiffness demands in the static and dynamic states for a VIS, which requires sufficient rigidity to support the self-weight of the isolated object in the static state, but sufficient flexibility to lengthen the isolation period and uncouple the ground motion in the dynamic state. To overcome this problem, a semi-active VIS, called the piezoelectric inertia-type vertical isolation system (PIVIS), is proposed in this study. PIVIS is composed of a piezoelectric friction damper (PFD) and a leverage mechanism with a counterweight. The counterweight provides an uplifting force in the static state and an extra inertial force in the dynamic state; therefore, the effective vertical stiffness of PIVIS is higher in the static state and lower in the dynamic state. The PFD provides a controllable friction force for PIVIS to further prevent its excessive displacement. For experimental verification, a shaking table test was conducted on a prototype PIVIS controlled by a simple controller. The experimental results well agree with the theoretical results. To further investigate the isolation performance of PIVIS, the seismic responses of PIVIS were simulated numerically by considering 14 vertical ground motions with different characteristics. The responses of PIVIS were compared with those of a traditional VIS and a passive system (PIVIS without control). The numerical results demonstrate that compared with the traditional and passive systems, PIVIS can effectively suppress isolation displacement in all kinds of earthquake with various peak ground accelerations and frequency content while maintaining its isolation efficiency. The proposed system is particularly effective for near-fault earthquakes with long-period components, for which it prevents resonant-like motion.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1127-1146
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• 2015

The excitation angle or angle of incidence is the angle in which the horizontal seismic components are applied with respect to the principal structural axes during a time history analysis. In this study, numerical simulations and parametric studies are performed for the investigation of the effect of the angle of seismic incidence on the response of adjacent buildings, which may experience structural pounding during strong earthquakes due to insufficient or no separation distance between them. A specially developed software application has been used that implements a simple and efficient methodology, according to which buildings are modelled in three dimensions and potential impacts are simulated using a novel impact model that takes into account the arbitrary location of impacts and the geometry at the point of impact. Two typical multi-storey buildings and a set of earthquake records have been used in the performed analyses. The results of the conducted parametric studies reveal that it is very important to consider the arbitrary direction of the ground motion with respect to the structural axes of the simulated buildings, especially during pounding, since, in many cases, the detrimental effects of pounding become more pronounced for an excitation angle different from the commonly examined 0 or 90 degrees.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.556-562
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• 2007

This paper presents the use of a novel fiber optic accelerometer system to monitor ambient vibration (both wind-induced one and vehicle-induced) of a real bridge structure. This sensor system integrates the $Moir\'{e}$ fringe phenomenon with fiber optics to achieve accurate and reliable measurements. A low-cost signal processing unit implements unique algorithms to further enhance the resolution and increase the dynamic bandwidth of the sensors. The fiber optic accelerometer has two major benefits in using this fiber optic accelerometer system for monitoring civil engineering structures. One is its immunity to electromagnetic (EM) interference making it suitable for difficult applications in such environments involving strong EM fields, electrical spark-induced explosion risks, and cabling problems, prohibiting the use of conventional electromagnetic accelerometers. The other is its ability to measure both low- and high-amplitude vibrations with a constantly high resolution without pre-setting a gain level, as usually required in a conventional accelerometer. The second benefit makes the sensor system particularly useful for real-time measurement of both ambient vibration (that is often used for structural health monitoring) and strong motion such as earthquake. Especially, the semi-strong motion and the small ambient one are successfully simulated and measured by using the new fiber optic accelerometer in the experiment of the structural health monitoring of a real bridge.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.241-260
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• 2002

The effect of shear coupled with axial force variation on the inelastic seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete bridge piers is investigated in this paper. For this purpose, a hysteretic axial-shear interaction model was developed and implemented in a nonlinear finite element analysis program. Thus, flexure-shear-axial interaction is simulated under variable amplitude reversed actions. Comparative studies for shear-dominated reinforced concrete columns indicated that a conventional FE model based on flexure-axial interaction only gave wholly inadequate results and was therefore incapable of predicting the behaviour of such members. Analysis of a reinforced concrete bridge damaged during the Northridge (California 1994) earthquake demonstrated the importance of shear modelling. The contribution of shear deformation to total displacement was considerable, leading to increased ductility demand. Moreover, the effect of shear with axial force variation can significantly affect strength, stiffness and energy dissipation capacity of reinforced concrete members. It is concluded that flexure-shear-axial interaction should be taken into account in assessing the behaviour of reinforced concrete bridge columns, especially in the presence of high vertical ground motion.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.179-186
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• 2007

The response spectrum is one of the important basic materials for the aseismic design. Numerous strong ground motions based on the seismic source characteristics for the earthquakes occurring in the Korean Peninsula were simulated to obtain the response spectra by using the computer program, SMSIM, developed by Boore (2005). Through the extensive review of other study outcomes, the input data for the simulation such as seismic source and attenuation characteristics were selected. The spectra obtained from the simulated ground motions were normalized to 1.0 g of zero period acceleration and compared with the standard response spectrum proposed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC, 1973). In this study, we found that the spectral values for the response spectra appeared to be larger than those of the standard spectrum in the frequency band above roughly 10 Hz. The variation of resulting response spectra was evaluated with the variable stress drops. It was shown that the spectral amplitude of the spectrum for the larger stress drop denotes higher value in the low frequency range.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.6
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• pp.789-807
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• 2020

Multiple earthquakes that occur during short seismic intervals affect the inelastic behavior of the structures. Sequential ground motions against the single earthquake event cause the building structure to face loss in stiffness and its strength. Although, numerous research studies had been conducted in this research area but still significant limitations exist such as: 1) use of traditional design procedure which usually considers single seismic excitation; 2) selecting a seismic excitation data based on earthquake events occurred at another place and time. Therefore, it is important to study the effects of successive ground motions on the framed structures. The objective of this study is to overcome the aforementioned limitations through testing a two storey RC building structural model scaled down to 1/10 ratio through a similitude relation. The scaled model is examined using a shaking table. Thereafter, the experimental model results are validated with simulated results using ETABS software. The test framed specimen is subjected to sequential five artificial and four real-time earthquake motions. Dynamic response history analysis has been conducted to investigate the i) observed response and crack pattern; ii) maximum displacement; iii) residual displacement; iv) Interstorey drift ratio and damage limitation. The results of the study conclude that the low-rise building model has ability to resist successive artificial ground motion from its strength. Sequential artificial ground motions cause the framed structure to displace each storey twice in correlation with vary first artificial seismic vibration. The displacement parameters showed that real-time successive ground motions have a limited impact on the low-rise reinforced concrete model. The finding shows that traditional seismic design EC8 requires to reconsider the traditional design procedure.