• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.860-868
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• 2018

This article presents a new design of earthquake instrumentation that is suitable for quick decision-making after the seismic event at the nuclear power plant (NPP). The main objective of this work is to ensure more availability of the NPP by expediting walk-down period when the seismic wave is incident. In general, the decision-making to restart the NPP after the seismic event requires more than 1 month if an earthquake exceeds operating basis earthquake level. It affects to the plant availability significantly. Unnecessary shutdown can be skipped through quick assessments of operating basis earthquake, safe shutdown earthquake events, and damage status to structure, system, and components. Multidecision parameters such as cumulative absolute velocity, peak ground acceleration, Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, floor response spectrum, and cumulative fatigue are discussed. The implementation scope on the field-programmable gate array platform of this work is limited to cumulative absolute velocity, peak ground acceleration, and Modified Mercalli Intensity. It can ensure better availability of the plant through integrated decision-making process by automatic assessment of NPP structure, system, and components.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.13-20
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• 1985

In this paper, earthquake response of the Bangkok area in Thailand was analyzed in terms of the acceleration response spectrum and maximum acceleration of the computed surface motions. The program SHAKE was employed to analyse the ground motion. With increasing the maximum acceleration and predominant period of given base rock motion, the computed maximum ground surface acceleration increases. but converges on a maximum value of about 0.39. The characteristics of earthquake response spectrum in the Bangkok area are also discussed and illustrated.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.487-494
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• 2005

In this study, a set of artificial earthquake time histories, which can be used for the earthquake-resistant design of seismically isolated highway bridges, was presented. In addition, adequateness of the generated ground accelerations was investigated. These were performed based on the seismic design standard for seismically isolated bridges. Total of 22 acceleration time histories were generated for each soil condition by the spectral method. The time histories were verified to meet the code provisions including (1) mean response spectrum at control frequencies, (2) EPGA (effective peak ground acceleration), and (3) correlation coefficient. Finally, the maximum response corresponding to four time histories and the mean response associated with seven time histories were computed using the generated acceleration time histories, which shows validity of the proposed artificial earthquake time histories.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.147-162
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• 2010

The ground acceleration measured at a point on the earth's surface is composed of several waves that have different phase velocities, arrival times, amplitudes, and frequency contents. For instance, body waves contain primary and secondary waves that have high frequency content and reach the site first. Surface waves are composed of Rayleigh and Love waves that have lower phase velocity, lower frequency content and reach the site next. Some of these waves could be of more damage to the structure depending on their frequency content and associated amplitude. This paper models critical earthquake loads for single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) inelastic structures considering evolution of the seismic waves in time and frequency. The ground acceleration is represented as combination of seismic waves with different characteristics. Each seismic wave represents the energy of the ground motion in certain frequency band and time interval. The amplitudes and phase angles of these waves are optimized to produce the highest damage in the structure subject to explicit constraints on the energy and the peak ground acceleration and implicit constraints on the frequency content and the arrival time of the seismic waves. The material nonlinearity is modeled using bilinear inelastic law. The study explores also the influence of the properties of the seismic waves on the energy demand and damage state of the structure. Numerical illustrations on modeling critical earthquake excitations for one-storey inelastic frame structures are provided.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.77-86
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• 2018

This study develops an empirical prediction equation of spectral acceleration responses of earthquakes which can induce structural damages. Ground motion records representing hazards of low-to-moderate seismic regions were selected and organized with several influential factors affecting the response spectra. The empirical equation and estimator coefficients for acceleration response spectra were then proposed using a robust nonlinear optimization coupled with a regression analysis. For analytical verification of the prediction equation, response spectra used for low-to-moderate seismic regions were estimated and the predicted results were comparatively evaluated with measured response spectra. As a result, the predicted shapes of response spectra can simulate the graphical shapes of measured data with high accuracy and most of predicted results are distributed inside range of correlation of variation (COV) of 30% from perfectly correlated lines.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.581-586
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• 1997

The objective of this study is to investigate the behavior of a 1/5-scale 3-story nonductile reinforced concrete frame subjected to earthquake excitation. For this purpose, Taft N21E earthquake accelerogram was simulated by using 3m${\times}$5m shaking table. When the input acceleration is compared to that of output, it can be found that simulation of shaking table is excellent. From the results of test with Taft N21E earthquake accelerogram adjusted to peak ground acceleration(PGA) 0.06g and 0.12g(maximum acceleration in korea seismic code) the model responded in elastic behavior and it is found that the existing building in our country are safe against the levels of PGA 0.06g and 0.12g.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.563-573
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• 2019

When generating spectrum-compatible artificial ground motion in engineering practices, the effect of the variation in fitting parameters on the distribution of the peak ground displacement (PGD) has not yet drawn enough attention. In this study, a method for simulating ground motion matching for multiple targets is developed. In this method, a frequency-dependent amplitude envelope function with statistical parameters is introduced to simulate the nonstationarity of the frequency in earthquake ground motion. Then, several groups of time-history acceleration with different temporal and spectral nonstationarities were generated to analyze the effect of nonstationary parameter variations on the distribution of PGD. The following conclusions are drawn from the results: (1) In the simulation of spectrum-compatible artificial ground motion, if the acceleration time-history is generated with random initial phases, the corresponding PGD distribution is quite discrete and an uncertain number of PGD values lower than the limit value are observed. Nevertheless, the mean values of PGD always meet the requirement in every group. (2) If the nonstationary frequencies of the ground motion are taken into account when fitting the target spectrum, the corresponding PGD values will increase. A correlation analysis shows that the change in the mean and the dispersion values, from before the frequencies are controlled to after, correlates with the modal parameters of the predominant frequencies. (3) Extending the maximum period of the target spectrum will increase the corresponding PGD value and, simultaneously, decrease the PGD dispersion. Finally, in order to control the PGD effectively, the ground motion simulation method suggested in this study was revised to target a specified PGD. This novel method can generate ground motion that satisfies not only the required precision of the target spectrum, peak ground acceleration (PGA), and nonstationarity characteristics of the ground motion but also meets the required limit of the PGD, improving engineering practices.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.223-232
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• 2021

The spatial variation characteristics of seismic motions at the nuclear power plant's site and structures were analyzed using earthquake records obtained at the Fukushima nuclear power plant during the Great East Japan Earthquake. The ground responses amplified as they approached the soil surface from the lower rock surface, and the amplification occurred intensively at about 50 m near the ground. Due to the soil layer's nonlinear characteristics caused by the strong seismic motion, the ground's natural frequency derived from the response spectrum ratio appeared to be smaller than that calculated from the shear wave velocity profile. The spatial variation of the peak ground acceleration at the ground surface of the power plant site showed a significant difference of about 0.6 g at the maximum. As a result of comparing the response spectrums at the basement of the structure with the design response spectrum, there was a large variability by each power plant unit. The difference was more significant in the Fukushima Daiichi site record, which showed larger peak ground acceleration at the surface. The earthquake motions input to the basement of the structure amplified according to the structure's height. The natural frequency obtained from the recorded results was lower than that indicated in the previous research. Also, the floor response spectrum change according to the location at the same height was investigated. The vertical response on the foundation surface showed a significant difference in spectral acceleration depending on the location. The amplified response in the structure showed a different variability depending on the type of structure and the target frequency.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.311-322
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• 2018

As a method of seismic-design for pile-supported wharves, equivalent static analysis, response spectrum analysis, and time history analysis method are applied. Among them, the response spectrum analysis is widely used to obtain the maximum response of a structure. Because the ground is not modeled in the response spectrum analysis of pile-supported wharves, the amplified input ground acceleration should be calculated by ground classification or seismic response analysis. However, it is difficult to calculate the input ground acceleration through ground classification because the pile-supported wharf is build on inclined ground, the methods to calculate the input ground acceleration proposed in the standards are different. Therefore, in this study, the dynamic centrifuge model tests and the response spectrum analysis were carried out to calculate the appropriate input ground acceleration. The pile moment in response spectrum analysis and the dynamic centrifuge model tests were compared. As a result of comparison, it was shown that the response spectrum analysis results using the amplified acceleration in the ground surface were appropriate.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.12
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• pp.4179-4188
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• 2021

This study identifies efficient earthquake intensity measures (IMs) for seismic performances and fragility evaluations of the reactor containment building (RCB) in the advanced power reactor 1400 (APR1400) nuclear power plant (NPP). The computational model of RCB is constructed using the beam-truss model (BTM) for nonlinear analyses. A total of 90 ground motion records and 20 different IMs are employed for numerical analyses. A series of nonlinear time-history analyses are performed to monitor maximum floor displacements and accelerations of RCB. Then, probabilistic seismic demand models of RCB are developed for each IM. Statistical parameters including coefficient of determination (R²), dispersion (i.e. standard deviation), practicality, and proficiency are calculated to recognize strongly correlated IMs with the seismic performance of the NPP structure. The numerical results show that the optimal IMs are spectral acceleration, spectral velocity, spectral displacement at the fundamental period, acceleration spectrum intensity, effective peak acceleration, peak ground acceleration, A95, and sustained maximum acceleration. Moreover, weakly related IMs to the seismic performance of RCB are peak ground displacement, root-mean-square of displacement, specific energy density, root-mean-square of velocity, peak ground velocity, Housner intensity, velocity spectrum intensity, and sustained maximum velocity. Finally, a set of fragility curves of RCB are developed for optimal IMs.