• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2017

The fundamental goal of this study is to minimize the uncertainty of the median fragility curve and to assess the structural vulnerability under earthquake excitation. Bayesian Inference with Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation has been presented for efficient collapse response assessment of the independent intake water tower. The intake tower is significantly used as a diversion type of the hydropower station for maintaining power plant, reservoir and spillway tunnel. Therefore, the seismic fragility assessment of the intake tower is a pivotal component for estimating total system risk of the reservoir. In this investigation, an asymmetrical independent slender reinforced concrete structure is considered. The Bayesian Inference method provides the flexibility to integrate the prior information of collapse response data with the numerical analysis results. The preliminary information of risk data can be obtained from various sources like experiments, existing studies, and simplified linear dynamic analysis or nonlinear static analysis. The conventional lognormal model is used for plotting the fragility curve using the data from time history simulation and nonlinear static pushover analysis respectively. The Bayesian Inference approach is applied for integrating the data from both analyses with the help of MCMC simulation. The method achieves meaningful improvement of uncertainty associated with the fragility curve, and provides significant statistical and computational efficiency.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.69-78
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• 2007

In this study, for the evaluation of seismic safety of the isolated Emergency Diesel Generator (EDG) System more quantitatively, the seismic fragility analysis method were proposed. Using the proposed method, seismic fragility analysis performed and a seismic risk of EDG system was present. The fragility analysis performed not for an existing EDG system but also for an isolated EDG system which increases the seismic capacity. At first, numerical models for existing and isolated EDG system were constructed and seismic response analysis performed according to input seismic waves and peak ground accelerations. An uncertainty factors and failure modes of both fixed and isolated EDG system were assumed for fragility analysis. The HCLPF values were evaluated for the compare the improvement effect using the isolation system. As a result, the isolation system can make better the seismic fragility of EDG system, but the failure of isolation system was govern the behavior of whole system.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.8 no.6 s.40
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• pp.31-43
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• 2004

Seismic risk assessment of bridge is presented using fragility curves which represent the probability of damage of a structure virsus the peak ground acceleration. In theseismic fragility analysis, the structural damage is defined using the rotational ductility at the base of the bridge pier, which is obtained through nonlinear dynamic analysis for various input earthquakes. For the assessment of seismic risk of bridge, peak ground accelerations are obatined for various return periods from the seismic hazard map of Korea, which enables to calculate the probability density function of peak ground acceleration. Combining the probability density function of peak ground acceleration and the seismic fragility analysis, seismic risk assessment is performed. In this study, seismic fragility analysis is developed as a function of not the surface motion which the bridge actually suffers, but the rock outcrop motion which the aseismic design code is defined on, so that further analysis for the seismic hazard assessment may become available. Besides, the effects of the friction pot bearings and the friction pendulum bearings on the seismic fragility and risk analysis are examined. Lastly, three regions in Korea are considered and compared in the seismic risk assessment.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.325-331
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• 2016

This research developed a flood fragility curve of bridges considering the debris impacts. Damage and failures of civil infrastructure due to natural disasters can cause casualties as well as social and economic losses. Fragility analysis is an effective tool to help better understand the vulnerability of a structure to possible extreme events, such as earthquakes and floods. In particular, flood-induced failures of bridges are relatively common in Korea, because of the mountainous regions and summer concentrated rainfall. The main failure reasons during floods are reported to be debris impact and scour; however, research regarding debris impacts is considered challenging due to various uncertainties that affect the failure probability. This study introduces a fragility analysis methodology for evaluating the structural vulnerability due to debris impacts during floods. The proposed method describes how the essential components in fragility analysis are considered, including limit-state function, intensity measure of the debris impact, and finite element model. A numerical example of the proposed fragility analysis is presented using a bridge pier system under a debris impact.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.586-595
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• 2002

The Seismic probabilistic risk assessment (SPRA) or seismic margin assessment (SMA) have been used for the seismic safety evaluation of nuclear power plant structures and equipments. For the SPRA or SMA, the reference response spectrum should be defined. The site-specific median spectrum has been generally used for the seismic fragility analysis of structures and equipments in a Korean nuclear power plant Since the site-specific spectrum has been developed based on the peak ground motion parameter, the site-specific response spectrum does not represent the same probability of exceedance over the entire frequency range of interest. The uniform hazard spectrum is more appropriate to be used in seismic probabilistic risk assessment than the site- specific spectrum. A method for modifying the seismic fragility parameters that are calculated based on the site-specific median spectrum is described. This simple method was developed to incorporate the effects of the uniform hazard spectrum. The seismic fragility parameters of typical NPP components are modified using the uniform hazard spectrum. The modification factor is used to modify the original fragility parameters. An example uniform hazard spectrum is developed using the available seismic hazard data for the Korean nuclear power plant (NPP) site. This uniform hazard spectrum is used for the modification of fragility parameters.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.217-230
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• 2006

This paper describes a procedure to develop fragility curves for woodframe structures subjected to lateral wind loads. The fragilities are cast in terms of horizontal displacement criteria (maximum drift at the top of the shearwalls). The procedure is illustrated through the development of fragility curves for one and two-story residential woodframe buildings in high wind regions. The structures were analyzed using a monotonic pushover analysis to develop the relationship between displacement and base shear. The base shear values were then transformed to equivalent nominal wind speeds using information on the geometry of the baseline buildings and the wind load equations (and associated parameters) in ASCE 7-02. Displacement vs. equivalent nominal wind speed curves were used to determine the critical wind direction, and Monte Carlo simulation was used along with wind load parameter statistics provided by Ellingwood and Tekie (1999) to construct displacement vs. wind speed curves. Wind speeds corresponding to a presumed limit displacement were used to construct fragility curves. Since the fragilities were fit well using a lognormal CDF and had similar logarithmic standard deviations (${\xi}$), a quick analysis to develop approximate fragilities is possible, and this also is illustrated. Finally, a compound fragility curve, defined as a weighted combination of individual fragilities, is developed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.569-581
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• 2017

The Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) based seismic fragility analysis (SFA) approach allows defining more realistic relationship between failure probability and seismic intensity. However, the approach requires simulating large number of nonlinear dynamic analyses of structure for reliable estimate of fragility. It makes the approach computationally challenging. The response surface method (RSM) based metamodeling approach which replaces computationally involve complex mechanical model of a structure is found to be a viable alternative in this regard. An adaptive moving least squares method (MLSM) based RSM in the MCS framework is explored in the present study for efficient SFA of existing structures. In doing so, the repetition of seismic intensity for complete generation of fragility curve is avoided by including this as one of the predictors in the response estimate model. The proposed procedure is elucidated by considering a non-linear SDOF system and an existing reinforced concrete frame considered to be located in the Guwahati City of the Northeast region of India. The fragility results are obtained by the usual least squares based and the proposed MLSM based RSM and compared with that of obtained by the direct MCS technique to study the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.431-441
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• 2018

This study provides fragility-based assessment of seismic performance of reinforced concrete bridges. Seismic fragility curves were created using nonlinear analysis (NA) and artificial neural networks (ANNs). Nonlinear response history analyses were performed, in order to calculate the seismic performances of the bridges. To this end, 306 bridge-earthquake cases were considered. A multi-layered perceptron (MLP) neural network was implemented to predict the seismic performances of the selected bridges. The MLP neural networks considered herein consist of an input layer with four input vectors; two hidden layers and an output vector. In order to train ANNs, 70% of the numerical results were selected, and the remained 30% were employed for testing the reliability and validation of ANNs. Several structures of MLP neural networks were examined in order to obtain suitable neural networks. After achieving the most proper structure of neural network, it was used for generating new data. A total number of 600 new bridge-earthquake cases were generated based on neural simulation. Finally, probabilistic seismic safety analyses were conducted. Herein, fragility curves were developed using numerical results, neural predictions and the combination of numerical and neural data. Results of this study revealed that ANNs are suitable tools for predicting seismic performances of RC bridges. It was also shown that yield stresses of the reinforcements is one of the important sources of uncertainty in fragility analysis of RC bridges.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.463-475
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• 2019

In this paper, a procedure to develop fragility curves of structures equipped with semi-active tuned mass dampers (SATMDs) considering multiple failure criteria has been presented while accounting for the uncertainties of the input excitation, structure and control device parameters. In this procedure, Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method has been employed to generate 30 random SATMD-structure systems and nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) has been conducted under 20 earthquakes to determine the structural responses, where failure probabilities in each intensity level have been evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method. For numerical analysis, an eight-story nonlinear shear building frame with bilinear hysteresis material behavior has been used. Fragility curves for the structure equipped with optimal SATMDs have been developed considering single and multiple failure criteria for different performance levels and compared with that of uncontrolled structure as well as structure controlled using passive tuned mass damper (TMD). Numerical analysis has shown the capability of SATMDs in significant enhancement of the seismic fragility of the nonlinear structure. Also, considering multiple failure criteria has led to increasing the fragility of the structure. Moreover, it is observed that the influence of the uncertainty of input excitation with respect to the other uncertainties is considerable.

• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1684-1698
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• 2018

Fragility functions are determined for braced steel moment frames (SMFs) with plans such as square-, T-, L-, U-, trapezoidal-, and semicircular-shaped, subjected to blast. The frames are designed for gravity and seismic loads, but not necessarily for the blast loads. The blast load is computed for a wide range of scenarios involving different parameters, viz. charge weight, standoff distance, and blast location relative to plan of the structure followed by nonlinear dynamic analysis of the frames. The members failing in rotation lead to partial collapse due to plastic mechanism formation. The probabilities of partial collapse of the SMFs, with and without bracing system, due to the blast loading are computed to plot fragility curves. The charge weight and standoff distance are taken as Gaussian random input variables. The extent of propagation of the uncertainties in the input parameters onto the response quantities and fragility of the SMFs is assessed by computing Sobol sensitivity indices. The probabilistic analysis is conducted using Monte Carlo simulations. The frames have least failure probability for blasts occurring in front of their corners or convex face. Further, the unbraced frames are observed to have higher fragility as compared to counterpart braced frames for far-off detonations.