• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.5-15
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• 2020

Dynamic behavior of pile foundation is significantly influenced by the dynamic interaction between soil and pile. Especially, in the sloping ground, the soil-pile interaction becomes very complex due to different resistance according to loading direction, soil residual displacement and so on. In this study, dynamic centrifuge tests were performed on the piles in the sloping ground. The model structures consisted of a single pile and 2×2 group pile. The soil-pile interaction has been investigated considering various conditions such as slope, single and group piles, and amplitude of input motions. The phase differences between soil and pile displacement and dynamic p-y curves were evaluated. The analysis results showed that the pile behavior was largely influenced by the kinematic forces between soil and pile. In addition, the dynamic p-y curve showed the complex hysteresis loop due to the effect of slope, residual displacement, and kinematic forces.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.261-269
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• 2018

This study examines earthquake-induced sloshing effects on liquid storage tanks using computation fluid dynamics. To achieve this goal, this study selects an existing square steel tank tested by Seismic Simulation Test Center at Pusan National University as a case study. The model validation was firstly performed through the comparison of shaking table test data and simulated results for the water tank subjected to a harmonic excitation. For a realistic estimation of the wall pressure response of the water tank, three recorded earthquakes with similar peak ground acceleration are applied:1940 El Centro earthquake, 2016 Gyeongju earthquake, and 2017 Pohang earthquake. Wall pressures monitored during the dynamic analyses are examined and compared for different earthquake motions and monitoring points, using power spectrum density. Finally, the maximum dynamic pressure for three earthquakes is compared with the design pressure calculated from a seismic design code. Results indicated that the maximum pressure from the El Centro earthquake exceeds the design pressure although its peak ground acceleration is less than 0.4 g, which is the design acceleration. On the other hand, the maximum pressure due to two Korean earthquakes does not reach the design pressure. Thus, engineers should not consider only the peak ground acceleration when determining the design pressure of water tanks.

• 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.26 no.4
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• pp.311-326
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• 2024

Transmission tower structures are particularly susceptible to damage and even collapse under strong seismic ground motions. Conventional seismic analyses of transmission towers are usually performed by considering only ground motion uncertainty while ignoring structural uncertainty; consequently, the performance evaluation and failure prediction may be inaccurate. In this context, the present study numerically investigates the seismic responses and failure mechanism of transmission towers by considering multiple sources of uncertainty. To this end, an existing transmission tower is chosen, and the corresponding three-dimensional finite element model is created in ABAQUS software. Sensitivity analysis is carried out to identify the relative importance of the uncertain parameters in the seismic responses of transmission towers. The numerical results indicate that the impacts of the structural damping ratio, elastic modulus and yield strength on the seismic responses of the transmission tower are relatively large. Subsequently, a set of 20 uncertainty models are established based on random samples of various parameter combinations generated by the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method. An uncertainty analysis is performed for these uncertainty models to clarify the impacts of uncertain structural factors on the seismic responses and failure mechanism (ultimate bearing capacity and failure path). The numerical results show that structural uncertainty has a significant influence on the seismic responses and failure mechanism of transmission towers; different possible failure paths exist for the uncertainty models, whereas only one exists for the deterministic model, and the ultimate bearing capacity of transmission towers is more sensitive to the variation in material parameters than that in geometrical parameters. This research is expected to provide an in-depth understanding of the influence of structural uncertainty on the seismic demand assessment of transmission towers.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.701-723
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• 2015

Friction isolators are one of the most important types of bearings used to mitigate damages of earthquakes. The adaptive behavior of these isolators allows them to achieve multiple levels of performances and predictable seismic behavior during different earthquake hazard levels. There are three main types of friction isolators. The first generation with one sliding surface is known as Friction Pendulum System (FPS) isolators. The double concave friction pendulum (DCFP) with two sliding surfaces is an advanced form of FPS, and the third one, with fully adaptive behavior, is named as triple concave friction pendulum (TCFP). The current study has been conducted to investigate and compare seismic responses of these three types of isolators. The structure is idealized as a two-dimensional single degree of freedom (SDOF) resting on isolators. The coupled differential equations of motion are derived and solved using state space formulation. Seismic responses of isolated structures using each one of these isolators are investigated under seven near fault earthquake motions. The peak values of bearing displacement and base shear are studied employing the variation of essential parameters such as superstructure period, effective isolation period and effective damping of isolator. The results demonstrate a more efficient seismic behavior of TCFP isolator comparing to the other types of isolators. This efficiency depends on the selected effective isolation period as well as effective isolation damping. The investigation shows that increasing the effective isolation period or decreasing the effective isolation damping improves the seismic behavior of TCFP compared to the other isolators. The maximum difference in seismic responses, the base shear and the bearing displacement, for the TCFP isolator are calculated 26.8 and 13.4 percent less than the DCFP and FPS in effective isolation damping equal to10%, respectively.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.1089-1109
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• 2016

Modified two-surface model (M2SM) is one of the steel elasto-plastic hysteretic constitutive models that consider both analysis accuracy and efficiency. However, when M2SM is used for complex strain history, sometimes the results are irrational due to the limitation of stress-strain path judgment. In this paper, the defect of M2SM was re-modified by improving the judgment of stress-strain paths. The accuracy and applicability of the improved method were verified on both material and structural level. Based on this improvement, the nonlinear time-history analysis was carried out for a deck-through steel arch bridge with a 200 m-long span under the ground motions of Chi-Chi earthquake and Niigata earthquake. In the analysis, we compared the results obtained by hysteretic constitutive models of improved two-surface model (I2SM) presented in this paper, M2SM and the bilinear kinematic hardening model (BKHM). Results show that, although the analysis precision of displacement response of different steel hysteretic models differs little from each other, the stress-strain responses of the structure are affected by steel hysteretic models apparently. The difference between the stress-strain responses obtained by I2SM and M2SM cannot be neglected. In significantly damaged areas, BKHM gives smaller stress result and obviously different strain response compared with I2SM and M2SM, and tends to overestimate the effect of hysteretic energy dissipation. Moreover, at some position with severe damage, BKHM may underestimate the size of seismic damaged areas. Different steel hysteretic models also have influences on structural damage evaluation results based on deformation behavior and low cycle fatigue, and may lead to completely different judgment of failure, especially in severely damaged areas.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.561-570
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• 2022

It is of great importance to be able to evaluate different structural systems not only based on their seismic performance but also considering their lifetime service costs. Many structural systems exist that can meet the engineering requirements for different performance levels; therefore, these systems shall be selected based on their economic costs over time. In this paper, two structural systems, including special steel moment-resisting and the ordinary concentric braced frames, are considered, which are designed to meet the three performance levels: Immediate Occupancy (IO), Life Safety (LS), Collapse Prevention (CP). The seismic behavior of these two systems is studied under three strong ground motions (i.e., Tabas, Bam, Kajour earthquake records) using the Perform3D package, and the incurred damages to the studied systems are examined at two hazard levels. Economic analyses were performed to determine the most economical structural system to meet the specified performance level requirements, considering the initial cost and costs associated with damages of an earthquake that occurred during their lifetime. In essence, the economic lifetime study results show that the special moment-resisting frames at IO and LS performance levels are at least 20% more economical than braced frames. The result of the study for these building systems with different heights designed for different performance levels also shows it is more economical from the perspective of long-term ownership of the property to design for higher performance levels even though the initial construction cost is higher.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.31-52
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• 2022

Investigating and evaluating the long-term creep behavior of historical buildings built on seismic zones is of great importance in terms of transferring these structures to future generations. Furthermore, assessing the earthquake behavior of historical structures such as masonry stone bridges is very important for the future and seismic safety of these structures. For this reason, in this study, earthquake analyses of a masonry stone bridge are carried out considering strong ground motions and various water levels. Tokatli masonry stone arch bridge that was built in the 10th century in Turkey-Karabük is selected for three-dimensional (3D) finite difference analyses and this bridge is modeled using FLAC3D software based on the three-dimensional finite difference method. Firstly, each stone element of the bridge is modeled separately and special stiffness parameters are defined between each stone element. Thanks to these parameters, the interaction conditions between each stone element are provided. Then, the Burger-Creep and Drucker-Prager material models are defined to arch material, rockfill material for evaluating the creep and seismic failure behaviors of the bridge. Besides, the boundaries of the 3D model of the bridge are modeled by considering the free-field and quiet boundary conditions, which were not considered in the past for the seismic behavior of masonry bridges. The bridge is analyzed for 6 different water levels and these water levels are 0 m, 30 m, 60 m, 70 m, 80 m, and 90 m, respectively. A total of 10 different seismic analyzes are performed and according to the seismic analysis results, it is concluded that historical stone bridges exhibit different seismic behaviors under different water levels. Moreover, it is openly seen that the water level is of great importance in terms of earthquake safety of historical stone bridges built in earthquake zones. For this reason, it is strongly recommended to consider the water levels while strengthening and analyzing the historical stone bridges.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.67-80
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• 1993

This paper presents the results of an analytical study to evaluate the inelastic seismic response characteristics of multistory building structures, the effects of gravity load on the seismic responses and its implications on the earthquake resistant design. Static analyses for incremental lateral force and nonlinear dynamic analyses for earthquake motions were performed to evaluate the seismic response of example multistory building structures. Most of considerations are placed on the distribution of inelastic responses over the height of the structure. When an earthquake occurs, bending moment demand is increased considerably from the top to the bottom of multistory structures, so that differences between bending moment demands and supplies are greater in lower floos of multistory structures. As a result, for building structures designed by the current earthquake resistant design procedure, inelastic deformations for earthquake ground motions do not distribute uniformly over the height of structures and those are induced mainly in bottom floors. In addition, gravity load considerded in design procedure tends to cause much larger damages in lower floors. From the point of view of seismic responses, gravity load affects the initial yield time of griders in earlier stage of strong earthquakes and results in different inelastic responses among the plastic hinges that form in the girders of a same floor. However, gravity load moments at beam ends are gradually reduced and finally fully relaxed after a structure experiences some inelastic excursions as a ground motion is getting stronger. Reduction of gravity load moment results in much increased structural damages in lower floors building structures. The implications of the effects of gravity load for seismic design of multistory building structures are to reduce the contributions of gravity load and to increased those of seismic load in determination of flexual strength for girders and columns.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.777-799
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• 2016

One of the major components for performance based seismic design is accurate estimation of critical seismic demand parameters. While nonlinear seismic analysis is the most appropriate analysis method for estimation of seismic demand parameters, this method is very time consuming and complex. Single mode pushover analysis method, N2 method and multi-mode pushover analysis method, modal pushover analysis (MPA) are two nonlinear static methods that have recently been used for seismic performance evaluation of few lateral load-resisting systems. This paper further investigates the applicability of N2 and MPA methods for estimating the seismic demands of ductile unstiffened steel plate shear walls (SPSWs). Three different unstiffened SPSWs (4-, 8-, and 15-storey) designed according to capacity design approach were analysed under artificial and real ground motions for Vancouver. A comparison of seismic response quantities such as, height-wise distribution of floor displacements, storey drifts estimated using N2 and MPA methods with more accurate nonlinear seismic analysis indicates that both N2 and MPA procedures can reasonably estimates the peak top displacements for low-rise SPSW buildings. In addition, MPA procedure provides better predictions of inter-storey drifts for taller SPSW. The MPA procedure has been extended to provide better estimate of base shear of SPSW.