• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.173-190
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• 2011

As a practical and effective seismic resisting technology, the base isolation system has seen extensive applications in buildings and bridges. However, a few problems associated with conventional lead-rubber bearings have been identified after historical strong earthquakes, e.g., excessive permanent deformations of bearings and potential unseating of bridge decks. Recently the applications of shape memory alloys (SMA) have received growing interest in the area of seismic response mitigation. As a result, a variety of SMA-based base isolators have been developed. These novel isolators often lead to minimal permanent deformations due to the self-centering feature of SMA materials. However, a rational design approach is still missing because of the fact that conventional design method cannot be directly applied to these novel devices. In light of this limitation, a displacement-based design approach for highway bridges with SMA isolators is proposed in this paper. Nonlinear response spectra, derived from typical hysteretic models for SMA, are employed in the design procedure. SMA isolators and bridge piers are designed according to the prescribed performance objectives. A prototype reinforced concrete (RC) highway bridge is designed using the proposed design approach. Nonlinear dynamic analyses for different seismic intensity levels are carried out using a computer program called "OpenSees". The efficacy of the displacement-based design approach is validated by numerical simulations. Results indicate that a properly designed RC highway bridge with novel SMA isolators may achieve minor damage and minimal residual deformations under frequent and rare earthquakes. Nonlinear static analysis is also carried out to investigate the failure mechanism and the self-centering ability of the designed highway bridge.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.9
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• pp.923-928
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• 2008

Pyrotechnic shock or pyroshock is characterized as a transient vibration phenomenon which shows large acceleration and high frequency range up to 10kHz during the operation of separation devices where explosives are used. During the flight of a launch vehicle, pyroshock is mainly generated at several events such as satellite separation, fairing separation and stage separation. In this paper, wiremesh isolators are introduced and several types of isolators are manufactured for the performance tests. For the investigation of typical characteristics of wiremesh isolators, compressive loading tests are basically performed and pyroshock tests are accomplished to confirm pyroshock isolation ability of each wiremesh isolator by using 4Kg dummy mass.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.1259-1281
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• 2014

This research has been conducted in order to investigate the effects of peak ground velocity (PGV) of near-field earthquakes on base-isolated structures mounted on Single Friction Pendulum (SFP), Double Concave Friction Pendulum (DCFP) and Triple Concave Friction Pendulum (TCFP) bearings. Seismic responses of base-isolated structures subjected to simplified near field pulses including the forward directivity and the fling step pulses are considered in this study. Behaviour of a two dimensional single story structure mounting on SFP, DCFP and TCFP isolators investigated employing a variety range of isolators and the velocity (PGV) of the forward directivity and the fling step pulses as the main variables of the near field earthquakes. The maximum isolator displacement and base shear are selected as main seismic responses. Peak seismic responses of different isolator types are compared to emphasize the efficiency of each one under near field earthquakes. It is demonstrated that rising the PGVs increases the isolator displacement and base shear of structure. The effects of the forward directivity are greater than the fling step pulses. Furthermore, TCFP isolator is more effective to control the near field effects than the other friction pendulum isolators are. This efficiency is more significant in pulses with longer period and greater PGVs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.200-207
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• 2001

The transmission of harmonic vibratory power form a vibrating rigid body into a supporting plate through passive and active isolators is investigated theoretically and experimentally. The theoretical model allows for the transmission of vertical and horizontal harmonic forces and moments about all three coordinate sun. The experiment is to use vibration actuators attached to the intermediate mass of the two-stage mount to minimize the rotational and translational vibration of the intermediate mass. The performance is done by measuring the vibration at the error sensors due to the primary vibration source and measuring the transfer functions from the control sources to the error sensors. Results show that over a frequence range from 1 to 100Hz, transmission into the supporting plate can be reduced substantially by employing in parallel with existing passive isolators, active isolators adjusted to provide appropriate control force amplitudes.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.1071-1084
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• 2022

The present study aims to investigate the dynamic properties of a novel isolation system composed of separate rubber and wire isolators. The testing program comprised pure compressive, pure-shear, compressive-stress dependence, and shear-strain dependence tests that used full-scale test specimens according to ISO 22762-1. A total of 22 test specimens were fabricated and investigated. Among the tests, the pure compressive test was a destructive test that reached up to the failure stage, whereas the others were nondestructive tests before the failure stage. Similar to the pure-shear test, at each compressive-stress level in the compressive dependence test or at each shear-strain level in the shear-strain dependence test, the cyclic loading was conducted for three cycles. In the nondestructive tests, examination of the dynamic shear properties in the X-direction was independent of the Y-direction. The test results revealed that the increase in the shear strain increased the energy dissipation but decreased the damping ratio, whereas the increase in the compressive stress increased the damping ratio. In addition, a macro model was developed to simulate the load-displacement response of the isolation systems, and the prediction results were consistent with the experimental results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.169-188
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• 2015

This study presents the effects of the spatial variation of ground motions in a hard rock site on the seismic responses of a base-isolated nuclear power plant (BI-NPP). Three structural models were studied for the BI-NPP supported by different number of lead rubber bearing (LRB) base isolators with different base mat dimensions. The seismic responses of the BI-NPP were analyzed and investigated under the uniform and spatial varying excitation of El Centro ground motion. In addition, the rotational degrees of freedom (DOFs) of the base mat nodes were taken to consider the flexural behavior of the base mat on the seismic responses under both uniform and spatial varying excitation. Finally, the seismic response results for all the analysis cases of the BI-NPP were investigated in terms of the vibration periods and mode shapes, lateral displacements, and base shear forces. The analysis results indicate that: (1) considering the flexural behavior of the base mat has a negligible effect on the lateral displacements of base isolators regardless of the number of the isolators or the type of excitation used; (2) considering the spatial variation of ground motions has a substantial influence on the lateral displacements of base isolators and the NPP stick model; (3) the ground motion spatial variation effect is more prominent on lateral displacements than base shear forces, particularly with increasing numbers of base isolators and neglecting flexural behavior of the base mat.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.1237-1251
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• 2016

Although the horizontal component of an earthquake response can be significantly reduced through the use of conventional seismic isolators, the vertical component of excitation is still transmitted directly into the structure. Records from instrumented structures, and some recent tests and analyses have actually seen increases in vertical responses in base isolated structures under the combined effects of horizontal and vertical ground motions. This issue becomes a great concern to facilities such as a Nuclear Power Plants (NPP), with specialized equipment and machinery that is not only expensive, but critical to safe operation. As such, there is considerable interest worldwide in vertical and three-dimensional (3D) isolation systems. This paper examines several vertical and 3D isolation systems that have been proposed and their potential application to modern nuclear facilities. In particular, a series of case study analyses of a modern NPP model are performed to examine the benefits and challenges associated with 3D isolation compared with horizontal isolation. It was found that compared with the general horizontal isolators, isolators that have vertical frequencies of no more than 3 Hz can effectively reduce the vertical in-structure responses for the studied NPP model. Among the studied cases, the case that has a vertical isolation frequency of 3 Hz is the one that can keep the horizontal period of the isolators as the first period while having the most flexible vertical isolator properties. When the vertical frequency of isolators reduces to 1 Hz, the rocking effect is obvious and rocking restraining devices are necessary.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.129-134
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• 2002

The seismic performance evaluation and retrofit process are very important for old bridge. If the result is not appropriate, a retrofit process requires. Among the various retrofit methods, this paper selects a seismic isolator and evaluates a seismic performance of bridge. In case of applied seismic isolators to bridge, it proved that seismic capacity is increased by isolators A period of bridge is increased, and a seismic response is decreased. A method of evaluation is capacity spectrum method. By means of a graphical procedure, capacity spectrum estimates a performance level of structure by comparing the capacity of structure with the demand of earthquake ground motion on the structure. The objective of this study is to compare a seismic performance of a non-seismic designed bridge and seismic isolated bridge and to verify a effect of seismic isolator

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.903-908
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• 2006

As environmental vibration requirements on precision equipment become more stringent. use of pneumatic isolators has become more popular and their performance is subsequently required to be further improved. Dynamic performance of passive pneumatic isolators is related to various design parameters in a complicated manner and, hence, is very limited especially in low frequency range by volume of chambers. In this study, an active control technique, so called time delay control which is considered to be adequate for a low frequency or nonlinear system, is applied to a single chamber pneumatic isolator. The procedure of applying the time delay control law to the pneumatic isolator is presented and its effectiveness in enhancement of transmissibility performance is shown based on simulation and experiment. Comparison between passive and active pneumatic isolators is also presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.19 no.4 s.68
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• pp.109-116
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• 2004

The dynamic behavior of the rectangular liquid storage structure is known to be greatly influenced by fluid-structure interaction. By mounting the liquid storage structure on the properly designed base isolators, dynamic response of the superstructure can be reduced. However, base isolators inevitably incur large displacement of the structure to the ground ·ind may give adverse effects on the sloshing height. This paper presents the analysis method for fluid-structure-isolator interaction in base-isolated rectangular liquid storage structures. In the method, the irrotational motion of invicid and incompressible ideal fluid is expressed by analytic solutions and the superstructure and isolators are properly modeled by finite element and bilinear model. Free surface sloshing motion, hydrodynamic pressure acting on the wall and structural response are obtained by the presented method.