• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.67-77
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• 2008

Seismic isolation has been studied continuously as a solution of the seismic engineering to reduce the sectional forces and the damages of structures caused by earthquakes. To certify reliable design and installation of the seismic isolation systems, seismic isolation bearings should be fabricated under well planned quality control process, and proper evaluation tests for their seismic performance should be followed. In this study, shear property evaluation tests for the lead rubber bearings(LRB) and the rubber bearings(RB) were implemented and the temperature dependency tests were also implemented to evaluate the changes of shear properties according to the changes of temperature. After evaluation tests, the measured shear properties were compared to their design values and their deviation was analyzed comparing with the allowable error ranges specified in Highway Bridge Design Specifications. These results showed that a considerable number of isolation bearings have so large deviations from their design values that their error ranges were over or very close to the allowable ranges. And the test results for temperature dependency showed that the shear properties of isolation bearings would be changed in great degree by the change of temperature during their service period. If these two types of changes in their shear properties are superposed, it would possible that the changes of shear properties from their original design values are over than 50%.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.476-483
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• 2004

This paper presents a hybrid system combining lead rubber bearings and hydraulic actuators controlled by a μ-synthesis method for seismic response control of a cable-stayed bridge. A hybrid system could alleviate some of restrictions and limitations that exist when each system is acting alone because multiple control devices are operating. Therefore, the overall control performance of a hybrid system may be improved compared to each system, however the overall system robustness may be negatively impacted by active device in the hybrid system or active controller may cause instability due to small margins. Therefore, a f-synthesis method that guarantees the robust performance is considered to enhance the possibility of real applications of the control system. The control performances of the proposed control system are compared with those of passive, active, semiactive control systems and hybrid system controlled by LQG algorithm and an extensive robust analysis with respect to stiffness and mass matrices perturbation and time delay of actuator is performed. Numerical simulation results show that the control performance of the proposed control system is superior to that of the passive system and slightly better than that of the active and semiactive systems and two hybrid systems show similar control performances. Furthermore, the hybrid system controlled by a μ-synthesis method shows the good robustness without loss of control performances. Therefore, the proposed control system could effectively be used to seismically excited cable-stayed bridge which contains many uncertainties.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.419-429
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• 2018

The seismic vulnerability analysis of multi-span bridges can be based on the response of the piers, provided that deck, bearings and foundations remain elastic. The lateral response of an RC bridge pier can be affected by different mechanisms (i.e., flexure, shear, lap-splice or buckling of the longitudinal reinforcement bars, second order effects). In the literature, simplified formulations are available for mechanisms different from the flexure. On the other hand, the flexural response is usually calculated with a numerically-based Moment-Curvature diagram of the base section and equivalent plastic hinge length. The goal of this paper is to propose a simplified analytical solution to obtain the Moment-Curvature relationship for hollow circular RC sections. This based on calibrated polynomials, fitted against a database comprising 720 numerical Moment-Curvature analyses. The section capacity curve is defined through the position of 6 characteristic points and they are based on four input parameters: void ratio of the hollow section, axial force ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio, transversal reinforcement ratio. A case study RC bridge pier is assessed with the proposed solution and the results are compared to a refined numerical FEM analysis, showing good match.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.1481-1497
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• 2015

Vertical earthquake ground motion may magnify vertical dynamic responses of structures, and thus cause serious damage to bridges. As main support structures, piers and bearings play an important role in vertical seismic response analysis of girder bridges. In this study, the pier and bearing are simplified as a vertical series spring system without mass. Then, based on the assumption of small displacement, the equation of motion governing the simply-supported straight girder bridge under vertical ground motion is established including effects of vertical deformation of support structures. Considering boundary conditions, the differential quadrature method (DQM) is applied to discretize the above equation of motion into a MDOF (multi-degree-of-freedom) system. Then seismic responses of this MDOF system are calculated by a step-by-step integration method. Effects of support structures on vertical dynamic responses of girder bridges are studied under different vertical strong earthquake motions. Results indicate that support structures may remarkably increase or decrease vertical seismic responses of girder bridges. So it is of great importance to consider effects of support structures in structural seismic design of girder bridges in near-fault region. Finally, optimization of support structures to resist vertical strong earthquake motions is discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.3
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• pp.401-413
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• 2022

The collapse of civil infrastructure due to natural disasters results in financial losses and many casualties. In particular, the recent increase in earthquake activities has highlighted on the importance of assessing the seismic performance and predicting the seismic risk of a structure. However, the nonlinear behavior of a structure and the uncertainty in ground motion complicate the accurate seismic response prediction of a structure. Artificial intelligence can overcome these limitations to reasonably predict the nonlinear behavior of structures. In this study, a deep learning-based algorithm was developed to estimate the time-history seismic response of bridge structures. The proposed deep neural network was trained using structural and ground motion parameters. The performance of the seismic response prediction algorithm showed the similar phase and magnitude to those of the time-history analysis in a single-degree-of-freedom system that exhibits nonlinear behavior as a main structural element. Then, the proposed algorithm was expanded to predict the seismic response and fragility prediction of a bridge system. The proposed deep neural network reasonably predicted the nonlinear seismic behavior of piers and bearings for approximately 93% and 87% of the test dataset, respectively. The results of the study also demonstrated that the proposed algorithm can be utilized to assess the seismic fragility of bridge components and system.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.173-184
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• 2023

Presently, the general seismic fragility evaluation method for a bridge system composed of member elements with different nonlinear behaviors against strong earthquakes has been to evaluate at the element-level. This study aims to develop a system-level seismic fragility evaluation method that represents a structural system. Because the seismic behavior of bridges is generally divided into transverse and longitudinal directions, this study evaluated the system-level seismic fragility in both directions separately. The element-level seismic fragility evaluation in the longitudinal direction was performed for piers, bridge bearings, pounding, abutments, and unseating. Because pounding, abutment, and unseating do not affect the transverse directional damages, the element-level seismic fragility evaluation was limited to piers and bridge bearings. Seismic analysis using nonlinear models of various structural members was performed using the OpenSEES program. System-level seismic fragility was evaluated assuming that damage between element-levels was serially connected. Pier damage was identified to have a dominant effect on system-level seismic fragility than other element-level damages. In other words, the most vulnerable element-level seismic fragility has the most dominant effect on the system-level seismic fragility.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.521-535
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• 2022

Efficient management of deteriorating civil infrastructure is one of the most important research topics in many developed countries. In particular, the remote displacement measurement of bridges using linear variable differential transformers, global positioning systems, laser Doppler vibrometers, and computer vision technologies has been attempted extensively. This paper proposes a remote displacement measurement system using closed-circuit televisions (CCTVs) and a computer-vision-based method for in-situ bridge bearings having relatively large displacement due to temperature change in long term. The hardware of the system is composed of a reference target for displacement measurement, a CCTV to capture target images, a gateway to transmit images via a mobile network, and a central server to store and process transmitted images. The usage of CCTV capable of night vision capture and wireless data communication enable long-term 24-hour monitoring on wide range of bridge area. The computer vision algorithm to estimate displacement from the images involves image preprocessing for enhancing the circular features of the target, circular Hough transformation for detecting circles on the target in the whole field-of-view (FOV), and homography transformation for converting the movement of the target in the images into an actual expansion displacement. The simple target design and robust circle detection algorithm help to measure displacement using target images where the targets are far apart from each other. The proposed system is installed at the Tancheon Overpass located in Seoul, and field experiments are performed to evaluate the accuracy of circle detection and displacement measurements. The circle detection accuracy is evaluated using 28,542 images captured from 71 CCTVs installed at the testbed, and only 48 images (0.168%) fail to detect the circles on the target because of subpar imaging conditions. The accuracy of displacement measurement is evaluated using images captured for 17 days from three CCTVs; the average and root-mean-square errors are 0.10 and 0.131 mm, respectively, compared with a similar displacement measurement. The long-term operation of the system, as evaluated using 8-month data, shows high accuracy and stability of the proposed system.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.6
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• pp.715-730
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• 2023

Broad studies have addressed the issue of structural element damage identification, however, rubber bearing, as a key component of load transmission between the superstructure and substructure, is essential to the operational safety of a bridge, which should be paid more attention to its health condition. However, regarding the limitations of the traditional bearing damage detection methods as well as few studies have been conducted on this topic, in this paper, inspired by the model updating-based structural damage identification, a two-stage bearing damage identification method has been proposed. In the first stage, we deduce a novel bearing damage localization indicator, called element relative MSE, to accurately determine the bearing damage location. In the second one, the prior knowledge of bearing damage localization is combined with sailfish optimization (SFO) to perform the bearing damage estimation. In order to validate the feasibility, a numerical example of a 5-span continuous beam is introduced, also the noise robustness has been investigated. Meanwhile, the effectiveness and engineering applicability are further verified based on an experimental simply supported beam and actual engineering of the I-40 Bridge. The obtained results are good, which indicate that the proposed method is not only suitable for simple structures but also can accurately locate the bearing damage site and identify its severity for complex structure. To summarize, the proposed method provides a good guideline for the issue of bridge bearing detection, which could be used to reduce the difficulty of the traditional bearing failure detection approach, further saving labor costs and economic expenses.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.13-18
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• 1993

The purpose of this study is to analyze the seismic effects of Lead Rubber Bearing base isolators on bridges. Base isolation is the tool to minimize the effect of earthquake before the seismic force is transfered to the structure. Currently, many structures including the buildings, power plants, and bridges, were built and planned with base isolation method. The simple model is developed for bridges with Lead Rubber Bearings. Equations of motion are solved by Newmark ${\beta}$ method. Springs representing the base isolators are assumed as bilinear springs and piers are modeled as nonlinear springs implementing Q-HYST model. Analysis is performed for the selected bridge. El Centro (N-S) earthquake(1940) is used. Deck displacement, pier ductility and pier shear force are calculated for the various Lead Rubber Bearings.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 2004

This paper introduces a shape memory alloy-restrainer-damper(SMA-RD) to protect multiple span continuous steel bridges from seismic loads. The type of bridges has only one fixed bearing condition on a pier and expansion bearings are located on the other piers and abutments. Due to this state and a big mass of the deck, these bridges are usually very vulnerable to column's damage on which fixed bearings are located and large deformation of abutments in passive action. Two types of SMA-RDs are developed, and their effect is inspected for protecting the bridges through seismic analyses. Conventional steel restrainer cables are also used to reduce the seismic vulnerability of the bridge and the results are compared to those of the SMA-RDs.