• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.341-346
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• 2001

Near source earthquakes can be characterized not only by strong horizontal but also by strong vertical ground motions with broad range of dominant frequencies. The inelastic horizontal response of thin-walled L-shaped steel bridge piers, which are popularly used as highway bridge supports, subjected to simultaneous horizontal and vertical ground excitations of near source earthquakes is investigated. A comprehensive damage index and an evolutionary-degrading hysteretic model are applied. Numerical analysis reveals that the strong vertical excitation of a near source earthquake exerts considerable influences on the damage development and horizontal response of thin-walled L-shaped steel bridge piers.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.279-291
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• 2024

The "Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral (KIGAM) Quake" is a web-based open platform developed for publicly serving seismological data from 61 stations operated by KIGAM in Korea. The service provides meta-information related to observatory sites, sensors, and recorders necessary for utilizing the seismological data, as well as mainly observed continuous and strong-motion waveforms. The data is available through both the web and International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN) web services (open API), a unified data-providing interface in seismology. The platform aims to strengthen its open nature by offering a signal processing function for strong ground motions that can be controlled by user requests. The processed results can be downloaded in ASCII format, designed to meet the increased demands and accessibility in the earthquake engineering field. The platform also offers earthquake research information produced by KIGAM, such as recent major earthquake source information and academic annual report of earthquakes. Additionally, a site flat file was constructed for the geotechnical characteristics of 61 KIGAM station (KGNET) sites based on direct investigations and estimations.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.15-39
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• 2013

The sensitivities of a structural response due to variation of its design parameters are prerequisite in the majority of the algorithms used for fundamental problems in engineering as system uncertainties, identification and probabilistic assessments etc. The paper presents the concept of probabilistic sensitivity of suspension bridges with respect to near-fault ground motion. In near field earthquake ground motions, large amplitude spectral accelerations can occur at long periods where many suspension bridges have significant structural response modes. Two different types of suspension bridges, which are Bosporus and Humber bridges, are selected to investigate the near-fault ground motion effects on suspension bridges random response sensitivity analysis. The modulus of elasticity is selected as random design variable. Strong ground motion records of Kocaeli, Northridge and Erzincan earthquakes are selected for the analyses. The stochastic sensitivity displacements and internal forces are determined by using the stochastic sensitivity finite element method and Monte Carlo simulation method. The stochastic sensitivity displacements and responses obtained from the two different suspension bridges subjected to these near-fault strong-ground motions are compared with each other. It is seen from the results that near-fault ground motions have different impacts stochastic sensitivity responses of suspension bridges. The stochastic sensitivity information provides a deeper insight into the structural design and it can be used as a basis for decision-making.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1091-1114
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• 2015

The adequacy of a number of advanced earthquake Intensity Measures (IMs) to predict the structural damage of earthquake resistant 3D R/C buildings is investigated in the present paper. To achieve this purpose three symmetric in plan and three asymmetric 5-storey R/C buildings are analyzed by nonlinear time history analysis using 74 bidirectional earthquake records. The two horizontal accelerograms of each ground motion are applied along the structural axes of the buildings and the structural damage is expressed in terms of the maximum and average interstorey drift as well as the overall structural damage index. For each individual pair of accelerograms the values of the aforementioned seismic damage measures are determined. Then, they are correlated with several strong motion scalar IMs that take into account both earthquake and structural characteristics. The research identified certain IMs which exhibit strong correlation with the seismic damage measures of the studied buildings. However, the degree of correlation between IMs and the seismic damage depends on the damage measure adopted. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the widely used spectral acceleration at the fundamental period of the structure is a relatively good IM for medium rise R/C buildings that possess small structural eccentricity.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.159-164
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• 2024

Recent earthquakes in Korea, like Gyeongju and Pohang, have highlighted the need for accurate seismic hazard assessment. The lack of substantial ground motion data necessitates stochastic simulation methods, traditionally used with a simplistic point-source assumption. However, as earthquake magnitude increases, the influence of finite faults grows, demanding the adoption of finite faults in simulations for accurate ground motion estimates. We analyzed variations in simulated ground motions with and without the finite fault method for earthquakes with magnitude (Mw) ranging from 5.0 to 7.0, comparing pseudo-spectral acceleration. We also studied how slip distribution and hypocenter location affect simulations for a virtual earthquake that mimics the Gyeongju earthquake with Mw 5.4. Our findings reveal that finite fault effects become significant at magnitudes above Mw 5.8, particularly at high frequencies. Notably, near the hypocenter, the virtual earthquake's ground motion significantly changes using a finite fault model, especially with heterogeneous slip distribution. Therefore, applying finite fault models is crucial for simulating ground motions of large earthquakes (Mw ≥ 5.8 magnitude). Moreover, for accurate simulations of actual earthquakes with complex rupture processes having strong localized slips, incorporating finite faults is essential even for more minor earthquakes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.755-778
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• 2010

Near-fault ground motion with directivity or fling effects is significantly influenced by the rupture mechanism and substantially different from ordinary records. This class of ground motion has large amplitude and long period, exhibits unusual response spectra shapes, possesses high PGV/PGA and PGD/PGA ratios and is best characterized in the velocity and the displacement time-histories. Such ground motion is also characterized by its energy being contained in a single or very few pulses, thus capable of causing severe damage to the structures. This paper investigates the characteristics of near-fault pulse-like ground motions and their implications on the structural responses using new proposed measures, such as, the effective frequency range, the energy rate (in time and frequency domains) and the damage indices. The paper develops also simple mathematical expressions for modeling this class of ground motion and the associated structural responses, thus eliminating numerical integration of the equations of motion. An optimization technique is also developed by using energy concepts and damage indices for modeling this class of ground motion for inelastic structures at sites having limited earthquake data.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.173-197
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• 2007

A wavelet-based procedure to generate artificial accelerograms compatible with a prescribed seismic design spectrum is described. A procedure to perform a baseline correction of the compatible accelerograms is also described. To examine how the frequency content of the modified records evolves with time, they are analyzed in the time and frequency using the wavelet transform. The changes in the strong motion duration and input energy spectrum are also investigated. An alternative way to match the design spectrum, termed the "two-band matching procedure", is proposed with the objective of preserving the non-stationary characteristics of the original record in the modified accelerogram.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.141-152
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• 2000

Based on the discussion about some empirical coherency models resulted from earthquake-induced ground motion recordings at the SMART-1 array in Taiwan, and a heuristic model of the coherency function from elementary notions of stationary random process theory and a few simplifying assumptions regarding the propagation of seismic waves, a practical coherency model for spatially varying ground motions, which can be applied in aseismic analysis and design, is proposed, and the regressive coefficients are obtained using least-square fitting technique from the above recordings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.563-588
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• 2016

In this study, solution models are proposed to obtain code-compatible ground motion record sets which can be used for both uni-directional and bi-directional dynamic analyses. Besides scaled, unscaled ground motion record sets are obtained to show the utility and efficiency of the solution models. For scaled ground motion sets the proposed model is based on hybrid HS-Solver which integrates heuristic harmony search (HS) algorithm with the spreadsheet Solver add-in. For unscaled ground motion sets HS based solution model is proposed. Design spectra defined in Eurocode-8 for different soil types are selected as target spectra. The European Strong Motion Database is used to get ground motion record sets. Also, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to evaluate the effect of different HS solution parameters on the solution accuracy. Results show that the proposed solution models can be regarded as efficient ways to develop scaled and unscaled ground motion sets compatible with code-based design spectra.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2020

The vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) analysis might be cumbersome and computationally expensive in bridge engineering due to the necessity of solving large number of coupled system of equations. However, VBI analysis can provide valuable insights into the dynamic behavior of highway bridges under specific loading conditions. Hence, this paper presents a numerical study on the dynamic behavior of a conventional highway bridge under strong near-field and far-field earthquake motions considering the VBI effects. A recursive substructuring method, which enables solving bridge and vehicle equations of motion separately and suitable to be adapted to general purpose finite element softwares, was used. A thorough analysis that provides valuable information about the effect of various traffic conditions, vehicle velocity, road roughness and effect of soil conditions under far-field and near-field strong earthquake motions has been presented. A real-life concrete highway bridge was chosen for numerical demonstrations. In addition, sprung mass models of vehicles consist of conventional truck and car models were created using physical and dynamic properties adopted from literature. Various scenarios, of which the results may help to highlight the different aspects of the dynamic response of concrete highway bridges under strong earthquakes, have been considered.