• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.343-365
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• 2019

Among the themes related to earthquake countermeasures at construction sites, those for tower cranes are particularly important. An accident involving the collapse of a crane during the construction of a skyscraper has serious consequences, such as human injury or death, enormous repair costs, and significant delays in construction. One of the causes of deadly tower crane collapses is the destruction of the site joints of the tower crane mast. This paper proposes a new design method by static elastoplastic finite element analysis using a supercomputer for the design of the end plate-type tensile bolted joints, which are generally applied to the site joints of a tower crane mast. This new design method not only enables highly accurate and reliable joint design but also allows for a design that considers construction conditions, such as the introduction of a pre-tension axial force on the bolts. By applying this new design method, the earthquake resistance of tower cranes will undoubtedly be improved.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.297-304
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• 1986

Earthquake disaster is dependent upon both site intensity and strength of structures. The higher the strength, structures become more safe, which in turn increases the construction cost. Therefore, it is necessary to decide an optimum design intensity in which the safety is balanced with the cost. Such an optimum design intensity for major man-made structures in Korea is determined in the present study from a simulation model as follows. 1) Hypothetical earthquake time series are generated from the probability distribution to represent appropriately the seismicity of Korea. 2) The strength of structures constructed with a certain design intensity is assumed to exponentially decrease with the elapsed time. The construction cost is also expressed as a function of design intensity. 3) Comparing the seismic intensity generated from the earthquake time series with the strength of structures, the safety of structures is examined. Then the time until the structure is damaged by an earthquake is obtained within the designed life time. 4) The above simulation is iterated several hundred times and hence the mean life time of structures having a certain design intensity is obtained. 5) After all, the optimum design intensity to minimize the annual mean loss, the ratio of construction cost to mean life time, is estimated. The major conclusions obtained from the above simulation model are as follows. 1) Depending upon the designed life time ($T_p$), the optimum design intensities are appeared to be 0. 05-0. 10g for $T_p=50yr$ and 0. 08-0.13g for $T_p=100yr$. 2) According to the sensitivity analysis, the optimum design intensity increases with the rapid strength decrease of structure and decreases with the increase of initial construction cost.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.53-72
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• 2019

Safety measures for tower cranes are extremely important among the seismic countermeasures at high-rise building construction sites. In particular, the collapse of a tower crane from a high position is a very serious catastrophe. An example of such an accident due to an earthquake is the case of the Taipei 101 Building (the author was the project director), which occurred on March 31, 2002. Failure of the bolted joints of the tower-crane mast was the direct cause of the collapse. Therefore, it is necessary to design for this eventuality and to take the necessary measures on construction sites. This can only be done by understanding the precise dynamic behavior of mast joints during an earthquake. Consequently, we created a new hybrid-element model (using beam, shell, and solid elements) that not only expressed the detailed behavior of the site joints of a tower-crane mast during an earthquake but also suppressed any increase in the total calculation time and revealed its behavior through computer simulations. Using the proposed structural model and simulation method, effective information for designing safe joints during earthquakes can be provided by considering workability (control of the bolt pretension axial force and other factors) and less construction cost. Notably, this analysis showed that the joint behavior of the initial pretension axial force of a bolt is considerably reduced after the axial force of the bolt exceeds the yield strength. A maximum decrease of 50% in the initial pretension axial force under the El Centro N-S Wave ($v_{max}=100cm/s$) was observed. Furthermore, this method can be applied to analyze the seismic responses of general temporary structures in construction sites.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.31-40
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• 2009

In this paper, a trial-error based method is presented to calibrate added mass models through numerical iterations minimizing the difference between the measured frequency data and its numerical simulation result for a dam floodgate. Earthquake analysis of the real floodgate for which the on-site hammering vibration test is performed show that the classical Westergaard added mass model gives relatively larger values in the maximum earthquake force and the maximum total displacement than the present added mass model, based on the calibration of on-site measurement data.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2001.09a
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• pp.36-43
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• 2001

In Korea, we are absolutely short of earthquake data in good quality from moderate and large earthquakes, which are needed fur the study of strong ground motion characteristics. This means that the best use of the available data is needed far the time being. In this respect, several methods are suggested in this paper, which can be applied in the process of data selection and analysis. First, it is shown that the calibration status of seismic stations can be easily checked by comparing the spectra from accelerometer and velocity sensor both of which are located at the same location. Secondly, it is recommended that S/N ratio in the frequency domain should be checked before discarding the data by only look of the data in time domain. Thirdly, the saturated earthquake data caused by ground motion level exceeding the detection limit of a seismograph are considered to see if such data can be used for spectrum analysis by performing numerical simulation. The result reveals that the saturated data can still be used within the dominant frequency range according to the levels of saturation. Finally, a technique to minimize the window effect that distorts the low frequency spectrum is suggested. This technique involves detrending in displacement domain once the displacement data are obtained by integration of low frequency components of the original data in time domain. Especially, the low frequency component can be separated by using discrete wavelet transform among many alternatives. All of these methods mentioned above may increase the available earthquake data and frequency range.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.613-621
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• 2015

The most urgent measure to be taken for a rapid rescue when a building collapse happens is to designate or predict a possible location where human beings are alive. It is, however, very difficult to find and correctly designate such cavities by conventional geophysical survey due to a pile of debris of building members. In this study, the simulation of building collapse induced by an earthquake was conducted to predict forming pattern of a existing cavities. The simulation cases included the influence of structure wall existence and height of building. Three types of building structure: five-story, ten-story and fifteen-story were prepared as a simulation case. In the case of high building, a collapse range on the inside of the building increased consequently lowering the possibility of lifeguard cavern forming. In addition, when a wall exists in the basement floor, the possibility that existing cavities could be formed increased compared to the cases without wall.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.279-295
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• 2011

This paper develops a probabilistic methodology for the seismic reliability analysis of structures with random properties. The earthquake loading is assumed to be described in terms of response spectra. The proposed methodology takes advantage of the response spectra and thus does not require explicit dynamic analysis of the actual structure. Uncertainties in the structural properties (e.g. member cross-sections, modulus of elasticity, member strengths, mass and damping) as well as in the seismic load (due to uncertainty associated with the earthquake load specification) are considered. The structural reliability is estimated by determining the failure probability or the reliability index associated with a performance function that defines safe and unsafe domains. The structural failure is estimated using a performance function that evaluates whether the maximum displacement has been exceeded. Numerical illustrations of reliability analysis of elastic and elastic-plastic single-story frame structures are presented first. The extension of the proposed method to elastic multi-degree-of-freedom uncertain structures is also studied and a solved example is provided.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.169-176
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• 2005

Many RC building structures of multiple uses constructed in Korea have the irregularities of torsion and soft story at bottom stories. A typical irregular building was selected as prototype and shaking table tests were performed to investigate the seismic performance of this building. The objective of this study is to evaluate the correlation between the experimental and analytical responses of this irregular building structure subjected to the earthquake excitation by using OpenSees(Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation). The results of analyses simulate well the effect of axial forces on the shear force of column and axial deformation. However, some discrepancy between analytical and experimental results in the distribution of shear forces and overturning deformation were observed.

• 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.6 no.3
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• pp.251-266
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• 2014

Dynamic analyses for a suite of ground of motions were conducted on concrete gravity dam sections to examine the earthquake induced stresses and effective damping. For this purpose, frequency domain methods that rigorously incorporate dam-reservoir-foundation interaction and time domain methods with approximate hydrodynamic foundation interaction effects were employed. The maximum principal tensile stresses and their distribution at the dam base, which are important parameters for concrete dam design, were obtained using the frequency domain approach. Prediction equations were proposed for these stresses and their distribution at the dam base. Comparisons of the stress results obtained using frequency and time domain methods revealed that the dam height and ratio of modulus of elasticity of foundation rock to concrete are significant parameters that may influence earthquake induced stresses. A new effective damping prediction equation was proposed in order to estimate earthquake stresses accurately with the approximate time domain approach.