• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.133-141
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• 2013

This paper presents the seismic evaluation and prediction of a damaged piloti-type Reinforced Concrete (RC) building before and after post-retrofitting under successive earthquakes. For considering realistic successive earthquakes, the past records measured at the same station were combined. In this study, the damaged RC building due to the first earthquake was retrofitted with a buckling-restrained brace (BRB) before the second earthquake occurred. Nonlinear Time History Analysis (NTHA) was performed under the scaled intensity of the successive ground motions. Based on the extensive structural response data obtained form from the NTHA, the fragility relationships between the ground shaking intensity and the probability of reaching a pre-determined limit state was were derived. In addition, The the fragility curves of the pre-damaged building without and with the BRBs were employed to evaluate the effect of the successive earthquakes and the post-retrofit effect. Through the seismic assessment subjected to the successive records, it was observed that the seismic performance of the pre-damaged building was significantly affected by the severity of the damage from the first earthquake damages and the hysteresis behavior of the retrofit element.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.7_spc
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• pp.473-483
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• 2016

In this paper, seismic performance assessment has been examined for a mid-rise RC building subjected to 2016 Gyeongju earthquake occurred in Korea. For the purpose of the paper, 2D external and internal frames in each direction of the building have been employed in the present comparative analyses. Nonlinear static pushover analyses have been conducted to estimate frame capacities. Nonlinear dynamic time-history analyses have also been carried out to examine demands for the frames subjected to ground motions recorded at stations in near of Gyeongju and a previous earthquake ground motion. Analytical predictions demonstrate that maximum demands are significantly affected by characteristics of both spectral acceleration response and spectrum intensity over a wide range of periods. Further damage potential of the frames has been evaluated in terms of fragility analyses using the same ground motions. Fragility results reveal that the ground motion characteristics of the Gyeongju earthquake have little influence on the seismic demand and fragility of frames.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.301-309
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• 2019

A methodology to assess seismic fragility of a nuclear power plant (NPP) using a conditional mean spectrum is proposed as an alternative to using a uniform hazard response spectrum. Rather than the single-scenario conditional mean spectrum, which is the conventional conditional mean spectrum based on a single scenario, a multi-scenario conditional mean spectrum is proposed for the case in which no single scenario is dominant. The multi-scenario conditional mean spectrum is defined as the weighted average of different conditional mean spectra, each one of which corresponds to an individual scenario. The weighting factors for scenarios are obtained from a deaggregation of seismic hazards. As a validation example, a seismic fragility assessment of an NPP containment structure is performed using a uniform hazard response spectrum and different single-scenario conditional mean spectra and multi-scenario conditional mean spectra. In the example, the number of scenarios primarily influences the median capacity of the evaluated structure. Meanwhile, the control frequency, a key parameter of a conditional mean spectrum, plays an important role in reducing logarithmic standard deviation of the corresponding fragility curves and corresponding high confidence of low probability of failure (HCLPF) capacity.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.389-403
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• 2021

Skewed bridges, being irregular structures with complicated dynamic behavior, are more susceptible to earthquake damage. Reliable seismic-resistant design of skewed bridges can be achieved by accurate determination of nonlinear seismic demands. However, the effect of geometric characteristics on the response modification factor (R-factor) is not accounted for in bridge design practices. This study attempts to investigate the effects of changes in the number of spans, skew angle and bearing stiffness on R-factor values and to assess the seismic fragility of skewed bridges. Results indicated that changes in the skew angle had no significant effect on R-factor values which were in consonance with code-prescribed R values. Also, unlike the increase in the number of spans that resulted in a decrease in the R-factor, the increase in bearing stiffness led to higher R-factor values. Findings of the fragility analysis implied that although the increase in the number of spans, as well as the increase in the skew angle, led to a higher failure probability, greater values of bearing stiffness reduced the collapse probability. For practicing design engineers, it is recommended that maximum demands on substructure elements to be calculated when the excitation angle is applied along the principal axes of skewed bridges.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.175-185
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• 2021

This study strives to highlight the importance of considering the vertical ground motions (VGM) in the seismic evaluation of RC buildings. To this aim, IDA (Incremental Dynamic Analysis) is conducted on three code-based designed high-rise RC frame-core wall buildings using a suite of earthquake records comprising of significant VGMs. To unravel the significance of the VGM inclusion on the performance of the buildings, IDAs are conducted in two states (with and without the vertical component), and subsequently based on each analysis, fragility curves are developed. Non-simulated collapse criteria are used to determine the collapse state drift ratio and the area under the velocity spectrum (SIm) is taken into account as the intensity measure. The outcome of this study delineates that the inclusion of VGM leads to the increase in the collapse vulnerability of the structures as well as to the change in the pattern of inter-story drifts and failure mode of the buildings. The results suggested that it would be more conservative if the VGM is included in the seismic assessment and the fragility analysis of RC buildings.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.65-72
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• 2011

Extensive computer simulations to account for the randomness in the process of seismic demand estimation have been a serious obstacle to the adoption of probabilistic performance assessments for the decision of applying seismic intervention schemes. In this study, a method for rapid fragility assessments based on a response database and the fragility contour method are presented. By the comparison of response contours in different formats, it is shown that representing maximum responses in ductility demand is better for the investigation of the effect of structural parameter changes on seismic demands than representations in absolute values. The presented fragility contour enables designers to practically investigate the probabilistic performance level of every possible retrofit option in a convenient manner using visualized data sets. This example demonstrates the extreme efficiency of the proposed approach in performing fragility assessments and successful application to the seismic retrofit strategies based on limit state probabilities.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.583-607
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• 2016

One of the main applications of seismic risk assessment is that an specific design could be selected for a bridge from different alternatives by considering damage losses alongside primary construction costs. Therefore, in this paper, the focus is on selecting the shape of pylon, which is a changeable component in the design of a cable-stayed bridge, as a double criterion decision-making problem. Different shapes of pylons include H, A, Y, and diamond shape, and the two criterion are construction costs and probable earthquake losses. In this research, decision-making is performed by using developed seismic risk assessment process as a powerful method. Considering the existing uncertainties in seismic risk assessment process, the combined incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) and uniform design (UD) based fragility assessment method is proposed, in which the UD method is utilized to provide the logical capacity models of the structure, and the IDA method is employed to give the probabilistic seismic demand model of structure. Using the aforementioned models and by defining damage states, the fragility curves of the bridge system are obtained for the different pylon shapes usage. Finally, by combining the fragility curves with damage losses and implementing the proposed cost-loss-benefit (CLB) method, the seismic risk assessment process is developed with financial-comparative approach. Thus, the optimal shape of the pylon can be determined using double criterion decision-making. The final results of decision-making study indicate that the optimal pylon shapes for the studied span of cable-stayed bridge are, respectively, H shape, diamond shape, Y shape, and A shape.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.101-108
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• 2019

The seismic safety of nuclear power plants has always been emphasized by the effects of accidents. In general, the seismic safety evaluation of nuclear power plants carries out a seismic probabilistic safety assessment. The current probabilistic safety assessment assumes that damage to the structure, system, and components (SSCs) occurs independently to each other or perfect dependently to each other. In case of earthquake events, the failure event occurs with the correlation due to the correlation between the seismic response of the SSCs and the seismic performance of the SSCs. In this study, the EEMS (External Event Mensuration System) code is developed which can perform the seismic probabilistic safety assessment considering correlation. The developed code is verified by comparing with the multiplier n, which is for calculating the joint probability of failure, which is proposed by Mankamo. It is analyzed the changes in seismic fragility curves and seismic risks with correlation. As a result, it was confirmed that the seismic fragility curves and seismic risk change according to the failure correlation coefficient. This means that it is important to select an appropriate failure correlation coefficient in order to perform a seismic probabilistic safety assessment. And also, it was confirmed that carrying out the seismic probabilistic safety assessment in consideration of the seismic correlation provides more realistic results, rather than providing conservative or non-conservative results comparing with that damage to the SSCs occurs independently.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.681-695
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• 2013

In 1999 Marmara and 2011 Van earthquakes in Turkey, majority of the existing buildings either sustained severe damage or collapsed. These buildings include masonry infill walls in both the interior and exterior R/C frames. The material of the masonry infill is the main variant, ranging from natural stones to bricks and blocks. It is demanding to design these buildings for satisfactory structural behavior. In general, masonry infill walls are considered by its weights not by interaction between walls and frames. In this study, R/C buildings with infill walls are considered in terms of structural behavior. Therefore, 5 and 8-story R/C buildings are regarded as the representative models in the analyses. The R/C representative buildings, both with and without infill walls were analyzed to determine the effects of structural behavior change. The differences in earthquake behavior of these representative buildings were investigated to determine the effects of infill walls leading structural capacity. First, pushover curves of the representative buildings were sketched. Aftermath, time history analyses were carried out to define the displacement demands. Finally, fragility analyses were performed. Throughout the fragility analyses, probabilistic seismic assessment for R/C building structures both with and without infill walls were provided. In this study, besides the deterministic assessment methodology, a probabilistic approach was followed to define structural effect of infill walls under seismic loads.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.4
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• pp.481-494
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• 2020

In this paper, a probability-based procedure to evaluate the performance of existing RC structures exposed to seismic and fire actions is presented. The procedure is demonstrated with reference to an existing old school building, located in Italy. The vulnerability assessment of the building highlights deficiencies under both static and seismic loads. Retrofit operations are designed to achieve the seismic safety. The idea of the work consists in assessing the performance of the existing and retrofitted building in terms of both the seismic and fire resistance. The seismic retrofit and fire resistance upgrading follow different paths, depending on the specific configuration of the building. A good seismic retrofit does not entail an improving of the fire resistance and vice versa. The goal of the current work is to study the variation of response due to the uncertainties considered in records/fire curves selection and to carry out the assessment of the studied RC structure by obtaining fragility curves under the effect of different records/temperature. The results show the fragility curves before and after retrofit operations and both in terms of seismic performance and fire resistance performance, measuring the percent improving for the different limit states.