• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• 제14권1호
• /
• pp.55-71
• /
• 2018

This paper investigates the role of the masonry infills on the correlation between widely used earthquake Intensity Measures (IMs) and the damage state of 3D R/C buildings taking into account the orientation of the seismic input. For the purposes of the investigation an extensive parametric study is conducted using 60 R/C buildings with different heights, structural systems and masonry infills' distributions. The results reveal that the correlation between the IMs and the seismic damage can be strongly affected by the masonry infills' distribution, depending on the special characteristics of the structural system, the number of stories and the incident angle.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제52권1호
• /
• pp.192-205
• /
• 2020

Seismic design practices and seismic response analyses of civil structures and nuclear power plants (NPPs) have conventionally used the peak ground acceleration (PGA) or spectral acceleration (S_a) as an intensity measure (IM) of an earthquake. However, there are many other earthquake IMs that were proposed by various researchers. The aim of this study is to investigate the correlation between seismic responses of NPP components and 23 earthquake IMs and identify the best IMs for correlating with damage of NPP structures. Particularly, low- and high-frequency ground motion records are separately accounted in correlation analyses. An advanced power reactor NPP in Korea, APR1400, is selected for numerical analyses where containment and auxiliary buildings are modeled using SAP2000. Floor displacements and accelerations are monitored for the non- and base-isolated NPP structures while shear deformations of the base isolator are additionally monitored for the base-isolated NPP. A series of Pearson's correlation coefficients are calculated to recognize the correlation between each of the 23 earthquake IMs and responses of NPP structures. The numerical results demonstrate that there is a significant difference in the correlation between earthquake IMs and seismic responses of non-isolated NPP structures considering low- and high-frequency ground motion groups. Meanwhile, a trivial discrepancy of the correlation is observed in the case of the base-isolated NPP subjected to the two groups of ground motions. Moreover, a selection of PGA or S_a for seismic response analyses of NPP structures in the high-frequency seismic regions may not be the best option. Additionally, a set of fragility curves are thereafter developed for the base-isolated NPP based on the shear deformation of lead rubber bearing (LRB) with respect to the strongly correlated IMs. The results reveal that the probability of damage to the structure is higher for low-frequency earthquakes compared with that of high-frequency ground motions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• 제9권5호
• /
• pp.1091-1114
• /
• 2015

The adequacy of a number of advanced earthquake Intensity Measures (IMs) to predict the structural damage of earthquake resistant 3D R/C buildings is investigated in the present paper. To achieve this purpose three symmetric in plan and three asymmetric 5-storey R/C buildings are analyzed by nonlinear time history analysis using 74 bidirectional earthquake records. The two horizontal accelerograms of each ground motion are applied along the structural axes of the buildings and the structural damage is expressed in terms of the maximum and average interstorey drift as well as the overall structural damage index. For each individual pair of accelerograms the values of the aforementioned seismic damage measures are determined. Then, they are correlated with several strong motion scalar IMs that take into account both earthquake and structural characteristics. The research identified certain IMs which exhibit strong correlation with the seismic damage measures of the studied buildings. However, the degree of correlation between IMs and the seismic damage depends on the damage measure adopted. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the widely used spectral acceleration at the fundamental period of the structure is a relatively good IM for medium rise R/C buildings that possess small structural eccentricity.