• 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.18 no.3
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• pp.151-160
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• 2014

Probabilistic tsunami hazard analysis (PTHA) is based on the approach of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) which is performed using various seismotectonic models and ground-motion prediction equations. The major difference between PTHA and PSHA is that PTHA requires the wave parameters of tsunami. The wave parameters can be estimated from tsunami propagation analysis. Therefore, a tsunami simulation analysis was conducted for the purpose of evaluating the wave parameters required for the PTHA of Uljin nuclear power plant (NPP) site. The tsunamigenic fault sources in the western part of Japan were chosen for the analysis. The wave heights for 80 rupture scenarios were numerically simulated. The synthetic tsunami waveforms were obtained around the Uljin NPP site. The results show that the wave heights are closely related with the location of the fault sources and the associated potential earthquake magnitudes. These wave parameters can be used as input data for the future PTHA study of the Uljin NPP site.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.47-55
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• 2003

This study proposed a convenient seismic design procedure for buckling-restrained braced frames based on the equivalent energy concept. The design process begins with the computation of input energy from response spectrum. Then the elastic energy and plastic energy are computed based on the equal energy concept. The computed plastic energy is distributed to each story along energy distribution ratio and the cross-sectional area of each brace is computed so that all the plastic energy is dissipated by the brace. The proposed procedure was applied to the design of three-, six-, and twenty-story steel frames with buckling-restrained braces, and artificial earthquake records were used for verification of the proposed method. According to analysis results, top story displacements of the low-rise structure satisfies the given target displacement however that of the twenty-story structure was much smaller than the given target displacement.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.545-553
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• 2017

A pounding tuned mass damper (PTMD) can be considered as a passive device, which combines the merits of a traditional tuned mass damper (TMD) and a collision damper. A recent analytical study by the authors demonstrated that the PTMD base on the energy dissipation during impact is able to achieve better control effectiveness over the traditional TMD. In this paper, a PTMD prototype is manufactured and applied for seismic response reduction to examine its efficacy. A series of shaking table tests is conducted in a three-story building frame model under single-dimensional and two-dimensional broadband earthquake excitations with different excitation intensities. The ability of the PTMD to reduce the structural responses is experimentally investigated. The results show that the traditional TMD is sensitive to input excitations, while the PTMD mostly has improved control performance over the TMD to remarkably reduce both the peak and root-mean-square (RMS) structural responses under single-dimensional earthquake excitation. Unlike the TMD, the PTMD is found to have the merit of maintaining a stable performance when subjected to different earthquake loadings. In addition, it is also indicated that the performance of the PTMD can be enhanced by adjusting the initial gap value, and the control effectiveness improves with the increasing excitation intensity. Under two-dimensional earthquake inputs, the PTMD controls remain outperform the TMD controls; however, the oscillation of the added mass is observed during the test, which may induce torsional vibration modes of the structure, and hence, result in poor control performance especially after a strong earthquake period.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.45-56
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• 2020

The application of critical excitation method with displacement-based objective function for multi degree of freedom (MDOF) systems is investigated. To this end, a new critical excitation method is developed to find the critical input motion of a MDOF system as a synthetic accelerogram. The upper bound of earthquake input energy per unit mass is considered as a new constraint for the problem, and its advantages are discussed. Considering this constraint, the critical excitation method is then used to generate synthetic accelerograms for MDOF models corresponding to three shear buildings of 10, 16, and 22 stories. In order to demonstrate the reliability of generated accelerograms to estimate dynamic response of the structures, three target ground motions with considerable level of energy contents are selected to represent "real critical excitation" of each model, and the method is used to re-generate these ground motions. Afterwards, linear dynamic analyses are conducted using these accelerograms along with the generated critical excitations, to investigate the key parameters of response including maximum displacement, maximum interstory drift, and maximum absolute acceleration of stories. The results show that the generated critical excitations can make an acceptable estimate of the structural behavior compared to the target ground motions. Therefore, the method can be reliably implemented to generate critical excitation of the structure when real one is not available.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.337-345
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• 2019

This work resumes a research that proposes the use of the technique based on the dissipation energy of the shape memory alloy (SMA) ties. It focuses principally on the assessment of the effectiveness of the use of these smart materials on displacements, accelerations and the stresses of the minaret of the great mosque of Ajloun in Jordan. The 3-D finite element model of the minaret is performed by the ANSYS software. First of all, the proposed model is calibrated and validated according to the experimental results gathered from ambient vibration testing results. Then, a nonlinear transient analysis is considered, when the El-Centro earthquake is used as the input signal. Different simulating cases concerning the location, number and type of SMA devices are proposed in order to see their influence on the seismic response of the minaret. Hence, the results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed SMA device.

• KCI Concrete Journal
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.191-199
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• 1999

A Precast frame system with hybrid beam-column connections was proposed in this study. An analytical study evaluated the system under seismic loadings. Four buildings with different heights were modeled in which each building had three types of joint details (A. B, C). Thus, twelve buildings were examined with variables such as building height and joint detail. Four earthquake records were applied to the buildings as input ground motions. All the records were normalized to the intensity of 0.25g to assess behavior under the same intensity of seismic excitation. All the joint types showed almost identical results except for the Mexico earthquake which was scaled up from 0. 1g to 0.25g. Buildings with the type C joint exhibited the largest deflection for the Mexico earthquake. It was concluded that type B joint could be used in a high seismic zone and the type C joint could possibly be used in the regions of low to medium seismic activity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.187-192
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• 2009

This study is performing a seismic analysis on the steel frames structure with dampers and analyzing the dynamic behavior in order to examine their efficiency and study the optimum dampers position to the seismic design steel structure. To improve the ability against an earthquake, this study performed the time history analysis. Controling an earthquake is the way to minimize the damage of the steel structure by dissipating input energy generated by an earthquake.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.3 s.49
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• pp.1-11
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• 2006

This paper presents a seismic fragility analysis method for a cable-stayed bridge with energy dissipation devices. Model uncertainties represented by random variables include input ground motions, characteristics of energy dissipation devices and the stiffness of cable-stayed bridge. Using linear regression, we established demand models for the fragility analysis from the relationship between maximum responses and the intensity of input ground motions. For capacity models, we considered the moment and shear force of the main tower, longitudinal displacement of the girder, deviation of the stay cables tension and the local buckling of the main steel tower as the limit states for cable-stayed bridge. As a numerical example, fragility analysis results for the 2nd Jindo bridge are presented. The effect of energy dissipation devices is also briefly discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.5
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• pp.589-605
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• 2023

This paper investigates the ductility demands of steel frames equipped with self-centring fuses under near-fault earthquake motions considering multiple yielding stages. The study is commenced by verifying a trilinear self-centring hysteretic model accounting for multiple yielding stages of steel frames equipped with self-centring fuses. Then, the seismic response of single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems following the validated trilinear self-centring hysteretic law is examined by a parametric study using a near-fault earthquake ground motion database composed of 200 earthquake records as input excitations. Based on a statistical investigation of more than fifty-two (52) million inelastic spectral analyses, the effect of the post-yield stiffness ratios, energy dissipation coefficient and yielding displacement ratio on the mean ductility demand of the system is examined in detail. The analysis results indicate that the increase of post-yield stiffness ratios, energy dissipation coefficient and yielding displacement ratio reduces the ductility demands of the self-centring oscillators responding in multiple yielding stages. A set of empirical expressions for quantifying the ductility demands of trilinear self-centring hysteretic oscillators are developed using nonlinear regression analysis of the analysis result database. The proposed regression model may offer a practical tool for designers to estimate the ductility demand of a low-to-medium rise self-centring steel frame equipped with self-centring fuses progressing in the ultimate stage under near-fault earthquake motions in design and evaluation.