• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.81-86
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• 2000

In recent modern protective systems have been introduced to reduce the vulnerability of bridges to seismic events. These protective systems include base isolation devices of different types, damping devices and active control devices. The objective of this study is to analytically evaluate the efficiency of a seismic retrofit scheme using base isolation systems, such as lead rubber bearings and sliding isolators. In this study, a triaxial model was used, which is capable of accurately developing the behavior of sliding isolators including the influence of the changing vertical force and velocity on the friction coefficients. Seismic response analyses of the bridge before and after retrofit were carried out by using a three-dimensional nonlinear seismic analysis program, IDARC-BRIDGE. To evaluate the efficiency of a retrofit scheme using triaxial isolators, a comparative study of performances of above two base isolation systems was conducted, and the numerical results show that the triaxial isolation solution can effectively reduce the sheat forces at the piers for the vertical ground motion.

• Journal of KSNVE
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.517-524
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• 1999

Mathematical formulas for multi-dimensional isolation analysis via vibrational power transmission can be derived in a rather simple form when the wave effects of the isolators are completely neglected. With increase of frequency range of interest, however, the wave effects play a very important role and hence cannot be neglected. The formulas get involved accordingly. In this study, a method of equivalent stiffness modeling of the isolators to include the wave effects is proposed in such a way that not only the complexity of the mathematical expressions but also that of experiments of necessity can be reduced. This method is illustratively applied to a two-dimensional vibration isolation system with nonrigid source and base structures.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.69-76
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• 2010

After obtaining tensile and compressive stiffness as well as shear stiffness of elastomeric seismic isolator experimentally, those stiffness were modeled analytically using nonlinear computer program. To induce tensile stress due to overturning in the seismic isolators of an isolated frame for horizontal force, free vibration simulations generated by large initial displacement were conducted. Since elastomeric seismic isolator is weak for tensile stress, the axial stiffness of isolators shall be included properly in the analytical model to evaluate the uplift phenomenon of elastomeric seismic isolator.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.109-112
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• 2006

In this study, an approach that installs seismic isolation bearings was proposed for the seismic retrofit of the existing bridges. The method that replaces all existing bearings with seismic isolators was proposed already. However, in this study, we recommend to utilize the existing bearings for the benefit of safety and cost. According to our proposal, the seismic isolators do not support vertical loads but they just function as the period shifter and the horizontal damper. To verify this approach experimentally, the real scale bearings and isolators for the real highway bridges were designed and fabricated. And the responses of this isolated bridges to the assumed earthquakes were determined by the pseudo dynamic test scheme. The test results were also compared to the responses computed by the well known structural analysis software to check the reliability of the test. From the test results, we found that the retrofitted bridges using the proposed method showed stable performances under earthquakes.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.395-402
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• 2003

Characteristics of base isolators including frictional and hysteretic types may be described by Bouc-Wen model. A probabilistic optimum design method of the base isolation system using Bouc-Wen model is presented in this paper. For optimum design, the objective function and constraints are derived based on the stochastic responses of the system. As a numerical example, the optimum design problem of a three-story base isolated shear type structure is formulated and solved by the sequential quadratic programming method.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.385-392
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• 2014

The isolators have been generally used to reduce a seismic force. If the isolators apply to the nuclear power plants(NPPs), the durability and capacity for the structures and equipments should be ensured during the life time. In this study, the long-term behavior of isolated NPPs was analyzed for ensuring the seismic safety. The properties of isolator due to the age-related degradation were analyzed. And the seismic behavior of isolated buildings was analyzed by considering the aging of rubber bearings in different temperature environments. According to the analysis results, the natural frequency of structures was increased with time. But the maximum acceleration and maximum displacement of isolated structures have not changed significantly. Although the damaged of structure did not occurred by aging of isolators, it was presented that the spectral acceleration at the target frequency of isolated structure increased with the temperature. Therefore the isolators in the isolated buildings should be carefully designed and manufactured considering the temperature-dependancy of rubber material.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.503-529
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• 2015

Traditionally, multi-story buildings are designed to provide stiffer structural support to withstand lateral earthquake loading. Introducing flexible elements at the base of a structure and providing sufficient damping is an alternative way to mitigate seismic hazards. These features can be achieved with a device known as an isolator. This paper covers the design of base isolators for multi-story buildings in medium-risk seismicity regions and evaluates the structural responses of such isolators. The well-known tower building for police personnel built in Dhaka, Bangladesh by the Public Works Department (PWD) has been used as a case study to justify the viability of incorporating base isolators. The objective of this research was to establish a simplified model of the building that can be effectively used for dynamic analysis, to evaluate the structural status, and to suggest an alternative option to handle the lateral seismic load. A finite element model was incorporated to understand the structural responses. Rubber-steel bearing (RSB) isolators such as Lead rubber bearing (LRB) and high damping rubber bearing (HDRB) were used in the model to insert an isolator link element in the structural base. The nonlinearities of rubber-steel bearings were considered in detail. Linear static, linear dynamic, and nonlinear dynamic analyses were performed for both fixed-based (FB) and base isolated (BI) buildings considering the earthquake accelerograms, histories, and response spectra of the geological sites. Both the time-domain and frequency-domain approaches were used for dynamic solutions. The results indicated that for existing multi-story buildings, RSB diminishes the muscular amount of structural response compared to conventional non-isolated structures. The device also allows for higher horizontal displacement and greater structural flexibility. The suggested isolation technique is able to mitigate the structural hazard under even strong earthquake vulnerability.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.185-196
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• 2019

One of the shortcomings of seismic bridge design codes is the lack of clarity in defining the role of different seismic isolation systems with linear or nonlinear behavior in terms of R-factor. For example, based on AASHTO guide specifications for seismic isolation design, R-factor for all substructure elements of isolated bridges should be half of those expressed in the AASHTO standard specifications for highway bridges (i.e., R=3 for single columns and R=5 for multiple column bent) but not less than 1.50. However, no distinction is made between two commonly used types of seismic isolation devices, i.e., elastomeric rubber bearing (ERB) with linear behavior, and lead rubber bearing (LRB) with nonlinear behavior. In this paper, five existing bridges located in Iran with two types of deck-pier connection including ERB and LRB isolators, and two bridge models with monolithic deck-pier connection are developed and their R-factor values are assessed based on the Uang's method. The average R-factors for the bridges with ERB isolators are calculated as 3.89 and 4.91 in the longitudinal and transverse directions, respectively, which are not in consonance with the AASHTO guide specifications for seismic isolation design (i.e., R=3/2=1.5 for the longitudinal direction and R=5/2=2.5 for the transverse direction). This is a clear indicator that the code-prescribed R-factors are conservative for typical bridges with ERB isolators. Also for the bridges with LRB isolators, the average computed R-factors equal 1.652 and 2.232 in the longitudinal and transverse directions, respectively, which are in a good agreement with the code-specified R-factor values. Moreover, in the bridges with monolithic deck-pier connection, the average R-factor in the longitudinal direction is obtained as 2.92 which is close to the specified R-factor in the bridge design codes (i.e., 3), and in the transverse direction is obtained as 2.41 which is about half of the corresponding R-factor value in the specifications (i.e., 5).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.5
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• pp.627-644
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• 2022

In past major earthquakes (1994 Northridge, 1995 Kobe, Chi-Chi 1999, Kocaeli 1999), significant damages occurred in the liquid storage tanks. The basic failure patterns were observed to be the buckling of the tank wall and uplift of the anchorage system. The damages in the industrial facilities and nuclear power plants have caused the spread of toxic substances to the environment and significant fires. Seismic isolation can be used in liquid storage tanks to decouple the structure and decrease the structural demand in the superstructure in case of ground shaking. Previous studies on the use of seismic isolation systems on liquid storage tanks show that an isolation system reduces the impulsive response but might slightly increase the convective one. There is still a lack of understanding of the seismic response of seismically isolated liquid storage tanks considering the fluid-structure interaction. In this study, one broad tank, one medium tank, and one slender tank are selected and designed. Two- and three-dimensional elastomeric bearings are used as seismic isolation systems. The seismic performance of the tanks is then investigated through nonlinear dynamic time-history analyses. The effectiveness of each seismic isolation system on tanks' performance was investigated. Isolator tension forces, modal analysis results, hydrodynamic stresses, strains, sloshing heights and base shear forces of the tanks are compared. The results show that the total base shear is lower in 3D-isolators compared to 2D-isolators. Even though the tank wall stresses, and strains are slightly higher in 3D-isolators, they are more efficient to prevent the tension problem.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.221-230
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• 2004

In this paper, the dynamic response of a multi-story steel moment resisting frame equipped with viscoelastic dampers or lead rubber bearing type isolators subjected to seismic loads is investigated analytically. The objective of this study is to find the best location of viscoelastic dampers by the maximum stress method and maximum story drifts method from structure analysis. Also, a secondary objective of the study is to compare the member force, combined stress, and natural period of the structure retrofitted with viscoelastic dampers or lead rubber bearing type isolators to find effective vibration control method.