• Wind and Structures
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.45-56
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• 2018

Wind damage of urban trees arises to be a serious issue especially in the typhoon-prone areas. As a family of tree species widely-planted in Southeast China, the structural behaviors of Plane tree is investigated. In order to accommodate the complexities of tree morphology, a fractal theory based finite element modeling method is proposed. On-site measurement of Plane trees is performed for physical definition of structural parameters. It is revealed that modal frequencies of Plane trees distribute in a manner of grouped dense-frequencies; bending is the main mode of structural failure. In conjunction with the probability density evolution method, the fragility assessment of urban trees subjected to wind excitations is then proceeded. Numerical results indicate that small-size segments such as secondary branches feature a relatively higher failure risk in a low wind level, and a relatively lower failure risk in a high wind level owing to windward shrinks. Besides, the trunk of Plane tree is the segment most likely to be damaged than other segments in case of high winds. The failure position tends to occur at the connection between trunk and primary branches, where the logical protections and reinforcement measures can be implemented for mitigating the wind damage.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.653-664
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• 2014

Wind fragility analysis provides a quantitative instrument for delineating the safety performance of civil structures under hazardous wind loading conditions such as cyclones and tornados. It has attracted and would be expected to continue to attract intensive research spotlight particularly in the nowadays worldwide context of adapting to the changing climate. One of the challenges encumbering efficacious assessment of the safety performance of existing civil structures is the possible incompleteness of the structural appraisal data. Addressing the issue of the data missingness, the study presented in this paper forms a first attempt to investigate the feasibility of using the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm and Bayesian techniques to predict the wind fragilities of existing civil structures. Numerical examples of typical linear or hysteretic shear frames are introduced with the wind loads derived from a widely used power spectral density function. Specifically, the application of the maximum a posteriori estimates of the distribution parameters for the story stiffness is examined, and a surrogate model is developed and applied to facilitate the nonlinear response computation when studying the fragilities of the hysteretic shear frame involved.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.524-530
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• 2020

The risk of offshore wind turbine support structures by scour has been proposed. The proposed utilize probabilities of scour depths and fragilities according to scour depth and a modification of a seismic risk analysis method. The probability distribution of scour depth was calculated using a equation which is suitable to consider marine environmental conditions such as significant wave height, significant period, and current velocity, and dynamic analysis was performed on an offshore wind turbine equipped with an suction bucket to find fragility. Then, the risk of offshore wind turbine support structure considering scour can be found by integrating the scour probability and the fragility.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.625-633
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• 2015

In this study, a coupled probabilistic framework is developed to assess wind risk on apartment buildings by using the convolution of wind hazard and fragility functions. In this framework, typhoon induced extreme wind is estimated by applying the developed Monte Carlo simulation model to the climatological data of typhoons affecting Korean peninsular from 1951 to 2013. The Monte Carlo simulation technique is also used to assess wind fragility function for 4 different damage states by comparing the probability distributions of the window system's resistance performance and wind load. Wind hazard and fragility functions are modeled by the Weibull and lognormal probability distributions based on simulated wind speeds and failure probabilities. The modeled functions are convoluted to obtain the wind risk for the different damage levels. The developed probabilistic framework clearly shows that wind risk are influenced by various important characteristics of terrain and apartment building such as location of building, exposure category, topographic condition, roof angle, height of building, etc. The risk model presented in this paper can be used as tools to predict economic loss estimation and to establish wind risk mitigation plan for the existing building inventory.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.374-382
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• 2021

The scour risk assessment was conducted for ultimate limit state of newly developed penta pod suction bucket support structures for a 5.5 MW offshore wind turbine. The hazard was found by using an empirical formula for scour depth suitable for considering marine environmental conditions such as significant wave height, significant wave period, and current velocity. The scour fragility curve was calculated by using allowable bearing capacity criteria of suction foundation. The scour risk was assessed by combining the scour hazard and the scour fragility.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.39-50
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• 2017

Displacement response and corresponding maximum response energy of structures are key parameters to assess the dynamic effect or even more destructive structural damage of the structures. By employing them, this research has compared the structural responses of jacket supported offshore wind turbine (OWT) subjected to seismic excitations apprehending earthquake incidence, when (a) soil-structure interaction (SSI) has been ignored and (b) SSI has been considered. The effect of earthquakes under arbitrary angle of excitation on the OWT has been investigated by means of the energy based wavelet transformation method. Displacement based fragility analysis is then utilized to convey the probability of exceedance of the OWT at different soil site conditions. The results show that the uncertainty arises due to multi-component seismic excitations along with the diminution trend of shear wave velocity of soil and it tends to reduce the efficiency of the OWT to stand against the ground motions.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.743-754
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• 2020

This study provides an insight of the nonlinear behavior of the Offshore Wind Turbine (OWT) structure using the distributed plasticity approach. The fiber section beam-column element is applied to construct the finite element model. The accuracy of the proposed model is verified using linear analysis via the comparison of the dynamic characteristics. For collapse risk assessment of OWT, the nonlinear effects considering the earthquake Incident Angle (IA) have been evaluated first. Then, the Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) has been executed using a set of 20 near-fault records. Lastly, fragility curves are developed to evaluate the vulnerability of structures for different limit states. Attained results justify the accuracy of the proposed approach for the structural response against the ground motions and other environmental loads. It indicates that effects of static wind and wave loads along with the earthquake loads should be considered during the risk assessment of the OWT structure.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.353-363
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• 2010

The most efficient measures to reduce damage from natural disasters include activities which prevent disasters in advance, decrease possibility of disasters and minimize the scale of damage. Therefore, developing of the risk assessment model is very important to reduce the natural disaster damage. This study estimated a typhoon damage which is the biggest damage scale among increased natural disasters in Korea along with climate change. The results of 3-second gust at the height of 10m level from the typhoon 'Maemi' which did considerable damage to Korean in 2003, using the wind data at the height of 700 hPa. September 12th 09 LST~13th 12 LST period by the time a typhoon Maemi approached to the Korean peninsula. This study estimate damage amount using 'Fragility curve' which is the damage probability curve about a certain wind speed of the each building component factors based on wind load estimation results by using 3-second gust. But the fragility curve is not to Korea. Therefore, we use the fragility curves to FPHLM(FDFS, 2005). The result of houses damage amount is about 11 trillion 5 million won. This values are limit the 1-story detached dwelling, $62.51\sim95.56\;m^2$ of total area. Therefore, this process is possible application to other type houses.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.75-90
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• 2016

A probabilistic approach that combines structural demand hazard analysis with cumulative damage assessment is presented and applied to a steel tower of a wind turbine. The study presents the step by step procedure to compare the reliability over time of the structure subjected to fatigue, assuming: a) a binomial Weibull annual wind speed, and b) a traditional Weibull probability distribution function (PDF). The probabilistic analysis involves the calculation of force time simulated histories, fatigue analysis at the steel tower base, wind hazard curves and structural fragility curves. Differences in the structural reliability over time depending on the wind speed PDF assumed are found, and recommendations about selecting a real PDF are given.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.103-142
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• 2020

One of the next frontiers in structural wind engineering is the design of tall buildings using performance-based approaches. Currently, tall buildings are being designed using provisions in the building codes and standards to meet an acceptable level of public safety and serviceability. However, recent studies in wind and earthquake engineering have highlighted the conceptual and practical limitations of the code-oriented design methods. Performance-based wind design (PBWD) is the logical extension of the current wind design approaches to overcome these limitations. Towards the development of PBWD, in this paper, we systematically review the advances made in this field, highlight the research gaps, and provide a basis for future research. Initially, the anatomy of the Wind Loading Chain is presented, in which emphasis was given to the early works of Alan G. Davenport. Next, the current state of practice to design tall buildings for wind load is presented, and its limitations are highlighted. Following this, we critically review the state of development of PBWD. Our review on PBWD covers the existing design frameworks and studies conducted on the nonlinear response of structures under wind loads. Thereafter, to provide a basis for future research, the nonlinear response of simple yielding systems under long-duration turbulent wind loads is studied in two phases. The first phase investigates the issue of damage accumulation in conventional structural systems characterized by elastic-plastic, bilinear, pinching, degrading, and deteriorating hysteretic models. The second phase introduces methods to develop new performance objectives for PBWD based on joint peak and residual deformation demands. In this context, the utility of multi-variate demand modeling using copulas and kernel density estimation techniques is presented. This paper also presents joined fragility curves based on the results of incremental dynamic analysis. Subsequently, the efficiency of tuned mass dampers and self-centering systems in controlling the accumulation of damage in wind-excited structural systems are investigated. The role and the need for explicit modeling of uncertainties in PBWD are also discussed with a case study example. Lastly, two unified PBWD frameworks are proposed by adapting and revisiting the Wind Loading Chain. This paper concludes with a summary and a proposal for future research.