• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.557-585
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• 2013

The recent huge earthquake ground motion records in Japan result in the reconsideration of seismic design forces for nuclear power stations from the view point of seismological research. In addition, the seismic design force should be defined also from the view point of structural engineering. In this paper it is shown that one of the occurrence mechanisms of such large acceleration in recent seismic records (recorded in or near massive structures and not free-field ground motions) is due to the interaction between a massive building and its surrounding soil which induces amplification of local mode in the surface soil. Furthermore on-site investigation after earthquakes in the nuclear power stations reveals some damages of soil around the building (cracks, settlement and sand boiling). The influence of plastic behavior of soil is investigated in the context of interaction between the structure and the surrounding soil. Moreover the amplification property of the surface soil is investigated from the seismic records of the Suruga-gulf earthquake in 2009 and the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake in 2011. Two methods are introduced for the analysis of the non-stationary process of ground motions. It is shown that the non-stationary Fourier spectra can detect the temporal change of frequency contents of ground motions and the displacement profile integrated from its acceleration profile is useful to evaluate the seismic behavior of the building and the surrounding soil.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.473-494
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• 2014

Progressive collapse, which is referred to as the collapse of the entire building under local damages, is a common failure mode happened by earthquakes. The collapse process highly depends on the whole structural system. Since, asymmetry of the building plan leads to the local damage concentration; it may intensify the progressive collapse mechanism of asymmetric buildings. In this research the progressive collapse of regular and irregular 6-story RC ordinary moment resisting frame buildings are studied in the presence of the earthquake loads. Collapse process and collapse propagation are investigated using nonlinear time history analyses (NLTHA) in buildings with 5%, 15% and 25% mass asymmetry with respect to the number of collapsed hinges and story drifts criteria. Results show that increasing the value of mass eccentricity makes the asymmetric buildings become unstable earlier and in the early stages with lower number of the collapsed hinges. So, with increasing the mass eccentricity in building, instability and collapse of the entire building occurs earlier, with lower potential of the progressive collapse. It is also demonstrated that with increasing the mass asymmetry the decreasing trend of the number of collapsed beam and column hinges is approximately similar to the decreasing trend in the average story drifts of the mass centers and stiff edges. So, as an alternative to a much difficult-to-calculate local response parameter of the number of collapsed hinges, the story drift, as a global response parameter, measures the potential of progressive collapse more easily.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.25-31
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• 2007

For areas such as the Korean Peninsula, which have moderate seismic activity but no available records of strong ground motion, synthetic seismograms can be used to evaluate ground motion without waiting for a strong earthquake. Such seismograms represent the estimated ground motions expected from a set of possible earthquake scenarios. Local site effects are especially important in assessing the seismic hazard and possible ground motion scenarios for a specific fault. The earthquake source and rupture dynamics can be described as a two-step process of rupture initiation and front propagation controlled by a frictional sliding mechanism. The seismic wavefield propagates through heterogeneous geological media and finally undergoes near-surface modulations such as amplification or deamplification. This is a complex system in which various scales of physical phenomena are integrated. A unified approach incorporates multi-scale problems of dynamic rupture, radiated wave propagation, and site effects into an all-in-one model using a three-dimensional, fourth-order, staggered-grid, finite-difference method. The method explains strong ground motions as products of complex systems that can be modified according to a variety of fine-scale rupture scenarios and friction models. A series of such deterministic earthquake scenarios can shed light on the kind of damage that would result and where it would be located.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2013

Structural elements of typical bridges are superstructure, connections, substuctures and foundations and earthquake resistance is decided with the failure mechanism formed by substuctures and connections. Therefore earthquake resistant design should be carried out in the basic design step where design strengths, e.g. design sections for structural elements are determined. The Earthquake Resistant Design Part of Korean Roadway Bridge Design Code provides two basic design procedures. The first conventional procedure applies the Code-provided response modification factors. The second new procedure is the ductility-based earthquake resistant design, where designer can determine the response modification factors. In this study, basic designs including the two design processes are carried out for a typical bridge and supplements are identified in view of providing earthquake resistance.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.1-11
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• 2007

This paper verifies the difference of the seismic behavior and seismic damage of the neighboring two reinforced concrete piers damaged by the 1995 Hyogoken Nanbu earthquake. The two piers were almost the same size, carrying slightly different dead load, and were provided with the same reinforcement arrangement except the amount of longitudinal reinforcement at the bottom portion of the piers. The pier with more reinforcement was completely collapsed due to this near field earthquake by shear failure at the longitudinal reinforcement cut-off while the other was only damaged at the bottom by flexure even though the longitudinal reinforcement cut-off was also existed at the mid height of the pier. According to the results of the pseudo dynamic test, the seismic damage was recognized to be greatly dependent on the ground motion characteristics even though the employed ground motions had the same peak acceleration. The severe damage was observed when the test employed the seismic wave that had strong influence to the longer period range compared to the initial natural period of the pier. On the other hand, based on the similar model experiment, the defect of gas-pressure welded splice of longitudinal reinforcement was revealed to save the piers against collapse due to the so-called fail-safe mechanism contrary to the intuitive opinion of some researchers. It was concluded that the primary cause of the collapse of the pier was the extremely strong intensity and peculiar characteristics of the earthquake motion according to both the site-specific and the structure-specific effects.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.79-89
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• 2000

In this paper, the seismic analysis and the modeling techniques have been introduced for aseismic performances assessment, when seismic isolation bearings are applied on a real bridge. Nonlinear time-history analysis is carried out using finite element analysis program. In this study, EI Centro earthquake(1940, N00W), Mexico earthquake(1985, N90W), and earthquake simulation from modified SIMQKE are used as earthquake ground excitations. The seismic response of seismically isolated bridge is compared with that of a bridge using conventional Pot Bearings, after obtaining the displacements of the deck, the deformations of the piers, shear forces and moments of the bottoms of the piers. The analytical analysis results show that seismic isolation bearing, especially seismic isolation bearings with sliding mechanism, could reduce earthquake forces.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.43-54
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• 2019

Existing reinforced concrete frame buildings designed for only gravity loads have been seismically vulnerable due to their inadequate column detailing. The seismic vulnerabilities can be mitigated by the application of a column retrofit technique, which combines high-strength near surface mounted bars with a fiber reinforced polymer wrapping system. This study presents the full-scale shaker testing of a non-ductile frame structure retrofitted using the combined retrofit system. The full-scale dynamic testing was performed to measure realistic dynamic responses and to investigate the effectiveness of the retrofit system through the comparison of the measured responses between as-built and retrofitted test frames. Experimental results demonstrated that the retrofit system reduced the dynamic responses without any significant damage on the columns because it improved flexural, shear and lap-splice resisting capacities. In addition, the retrofit system contributed to changing a damage mechanism from a soft-story mechanism (column-sidesway mechanism) to a mixed-damage mechanism, which was commonly found in reinforced concrete buildings with strong-column weak-beam system.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2021

Most commercial buildings among existing RC buildings in Korea have a multi-story wall-frame structure where RC shear wall is commonly used as its core at stairways or elevators. The members of the existing middle and low-rise wall-frame buildings are likely arranged in ordinary details considering building occupancy, and the importance and difficulty of member design. This is because there are few limitations, considerations, and financial burdens on the code for designing members with ordinary details. Compared with the intermediate or unique details, the ductility and overstrength are insufficient. Furthermore, the behavior of the member can be shear-dominated. Since shear failure in vertical members can cause a collapse of the entire structure, nonlinear characteristics such as shear strength and stiffness deterioration should be adequately reflected in the analysis model. With this background, an 8-story RC wall-frame building was designed as a building frame system with ordinary shear walls, and the effect of reflecting the shear failure mode of columns and walls on the collapse mechanism was investigated. As a result, the shear failure mode effect on the collapse mechanism was evident in walls, not columns. Consequently, it is recommended that the shear behavior characteristics of walls are explicitly considered in the analysis of wall-frame buildings with ordinary details.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.1001-1024
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• 2014

The size of spread footings was found to be unnecessarily large from some actual engineering practices constructed in Taiwan, due to the strict design provisions related to footing uplift. According to the earlier design code in Taiwan, the footing uplift involving separation of footing from subsoil was permitted to be only up to one-half of the foundation base area, as the applied moment reaches the value of plastic moment capacity of the column. The reason for this provision was that rocking of spread footings was not a favorable mechanism. However, recent research has indicated that rocking itself may not be detrimental to seismic performance and, in fact, may act as a form of seismic isolation mechanism. In order to clarify the effects of the relative strength between column and foundation on the rocking behavior of a column, six circular reinforced concrete (RC) columns were designed and constructed and a series of rocking experiments were performed. During the tests, columns rested on a rubber pad to allow rocking to take place. Experimental variables included the dimensions of the footings, the strength and ductility capacity of the columns and the intensity of the applied earthquake. Experimental data for the six circular RC columns subjected to quasi-static and pseudo-dynamic loading are presented. Results of each cyclic loading test are compared against the benchmark test with fixed-base conditions. By comparing the experimental responses of the specimens with different design details, a key parameter of rocking behavior related to footing size and column strength is identified. For a properly designed column with the parameter higher than 1, the beneficial effects of rocking in reducing ductility and the strength demand of columns is verified.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2002.03a
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• pp.228-235
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• 2002

As the response spectrum method generally used in the earthquake resistant design is a linear method, the nonlinear behavior of a structure is to be reflected with a specific factor. Such factors are provided in the "Design Criteria for Roadwaybridges"as response modification factors and in the Eurocode 8, Part 2 as behavior factors. In this study a 5-span steel box bridge with single column piers is selected and the behavior factor is determined. The linear time history analyses are carried out with a simple linear model, where the nonlinear behavior of piers leading to the ductile failure mechanism is considered as predetermined characteristic curves.