• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.78-84
• /
• 2008

Recent earthquakes near nuclear power plants in Korea have triggered public concerns about possible seismicity of the Ulsan Fault Zone in the south-eastern part of the Korean peninsula. To reveal subsurface structures of this fault zone, we conducted high-resolution seismic refraction and reflection surveys, and closely spaced gravity measurements in the Dongchon River valley north of Ulsan, Korea. Here alluvium covers the north-south trending fault zone in a 1-km wide valley. Both source points and receivers were spaced at 5-m intervals for the 24-channel seismic refraction and reflection methods, along two profiles of 835 m and 415 m length. Gravity data were also measured along these profiles at 131 stations using a 10-m interval. Synergetic interpretation of seismic refraction, high-resolution seismic reflection, and gravity surveys across the valley indicates that the Ulsan Fault Zone was formed by apparent north-south strike-slip motions during the Cretaceous, and that some faults may have been reactivated by east-west compressional or transpressional stresses during the Tertiary or Quaternary.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.19-28
• /
• 2014

The seismic evaluation of electric power facilities in the switchyard of nuclear power plants is currently insufficient. In order to evaluate the seismic performance of lightning arrester subjected to four types of earthquake (near- and far-fault earthquakes, NEHRP Site Class A&B and D earthquakes), seismic fragility analysis using maximum likelihood estimation is performed considering various damage states. The comparison of the seismic fragility curves for three main parts of lightning arrester that are the busing, anchor and steel frame, reveals that the failure of lightning arrester is governed by the bushing damage mode such as porcelain cracking.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.215-227
• /
• 2018

Supplemental passive control devices are widely considered as an important tool to mitigate the dynamic response of a building under seismic excitation. Nevertheless, a systematic method for strategically placing dampers in the buildings is not prescribed in building codes and guidelines. Many deterministic and stochastic methods have been proposed by previous researchers to investigate the optimum distribution of the viscous dampers in the steel frames. However, the seismic performances of the retrofitted buildings that are under large earthquake intensity levels or near collapse state have not been evaluated by any seismic research. Recent years, an increasing number of studies utilize genetic algorithms (GA) to explore the complex engineering optimization problems. GA interfaced with nonlinear response history (NRH) analysis is considered as one of the most powerful and popular stochastic methods to deal with the nonlinear optimization problem of damper distribution. In this paper, the effectiveness and the efficiency of GA on optimizing damper distribution are first evaluated by strong ground motions associated with the collapse failure. A practical optimization framework using GA and NRH analysis is proposed for optimizing the distribution of the fluid viscous dampers within the moment resisting frames (MRF) regarding the improvements of large drifts under intensive seismic context. Both a 10-storey and a 20-storey building are involved to explore higher mode effect. A far-fault and a near-fault earthquake environment are also considered for the frames under different seismic intensity levels. To evaluate the improvements obtained from the GA optimization regarding the collapse performance of the buildings, Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) is conducted and comparisons are made between the GA damper distribution and stiffness proportional damping distribution on the collapse probability of the retrofitted frames.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.267-283
• /
• 2011

Although earthquakes generate random cyclic lateral loading on structures, a quasi-static cyclic loading pattern with gradually increasing amplitude has been commonly used in the laboratory tests because of its relatively low cost and simplicity compared with pseudo-dynamic and shake table tests. The number, amplitudes and sequence of cycles must be chosen appropriately as important parameters of a quasi-static cyclic loading pattern in order to account for cumulative damage matter. This paper aims to reach a new cyclic displacement pattern to be used in quasi-static tests of well-confined, flexure-dominated reinforced concrete (RC) columns. The main parameters of the study are sectional dimensions, percentage of longitudinal reinforcement, axial force intensity and earthquake types, namely, far-fault and near-fault.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.81 no.5
• /
• pp.633-645
• /
• 2022

The active tuned mass damper (ATMD) is an efficient and reliable structural control system for mitigating the dynamic response of structures. The inertial force that an ATMD exerts on a structure to attenuate its otherwise large kinetic energy and undesirable vibrations and displacements is proportional to its excursion. Achieving a balance between the inertial force and excursion requires a control law or feedback mechanism. This study presents a technique for the optimum design of a sliding mode controller (SMC) as the control law for ATMD-equipped structures subjected to earthquakes. The technique includes optimizing an SMC under an artificial earthquake followed by testing its performance under real earthquakes. The SMC of a real 11-story shear building is optimized to demonstrate the technique, and its performance in mitigating the displacements of the building under benchmark near- and far-fault earthquakes is compared against that of a few other techniques (proportional-integral-derivative [PID], linear-quadratic regulator [LQR], and fuzzy logic control [FLC]). Results indicate that the optimum SMC outperforms PID and LQR and exhibits performance comparable to that of FLC in reducing displacements.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.21-38
• /
• 2002

A control algorithm combining viscous and non-linear Reid damping mechanisms has been recently proposed by the authors to command active friction dampers. In this paper, friction dampers and the proposed algorithm are applied to control the seismic responses of a nonlinear 20-story building. Piezoelectric stack actuators are used to implement the control algorithm. The capacity of each damper is determined by the practical size of piezoelectric actuators and the availability of power supply. The saturation effect of the actuators on the building responses is investigated. To minimize the peak story drift ratio or floor acceleration of the building structure, a practical sequential procedure is developed to sub-optimally place the dampers on various floors. The effectiveness of active friction dampers and the efficiency of the proposed sequential procedure are verified by subjecting the building structure to four earthquakes of various intensities. The performance of 80 dampers and 137 dampers installed on the structure is evaluated according to 5 criteria. Numerical simulations indicated that the proposed control algorithm effectively reduces the seismic responses of the uncontrolled 20-story building, such as inelastic deformation. The sub-optimal placement of dampers based on peak acceleration outperforms that based on peak drift ratio for structures subjected to near-fault ground motions. Saturation of piezoelectric actuators has adverse effect on floor acceleration.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.485-498
• /
• 2022

In near-fault earthquake prone areas, the velocity pulse-like seismic waves often results in excessive horizontal displacement for structures, which may result in severe structural failure during large or near-fault earthquakes. The recently developed isolator-gap damper (IGD) systems provide a solution for the large horizontal displacement of long period base-isolated structures. However, the hysteresis characteristics of the IGD system are significantly different from the traditional hysteretic behavior. At present, the hysteretic behavior is difficult to be reflected in the structural analysis and performance evaluation especially under random earthquake excitations for lacking of effective analysis models which prevent the application of this kind of IGD system. In this paper, we propose a mathematical hysteretic model for the IGD system that presents its nonlinear hysteretic characteristics. The equivalent linearization is conducted on this nonlinear model, which requires the variances of the IGD responses. The covariance matrix for the responses of the structure and the IGD system is obtained for random earthquake excitations represented by the Kanai-Tajimi spectrum by solving the Lyapunov equation. The responses obtained by the equivalent linearization are verified in comparison with the nonlinear responses by the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) analysis for random earthquake excitations.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.501-524
• /
• 2011

Recent studies have discovered that a conventional passive isolation system may suffer from an excessive isolator displacement when subjected to a near-fault earthquake that usually has a long-period velocity pulse waveform. Semi-active isolation using variable friction dampers (VFD), which requires a suitable control law, may provide a solution to this problem. To control the VFD in a semi-active isolation system more efficiently, this paper investigates experimentally the possible use of a control law whose control logic is similar to that of the anti-lock braking systems (ABS) widely used in the automobile industry. This ABS-type controller has the advantages of being simple and easily implemented, because it only requires the measurement of the isolation-layer velocity and does not require system modeling for gain design. Most importantly, it does not interfere with the isolation period, which usually decides the isolation efficiency. In order to verify its feasibility and effectiveness, the ABS-type controller was implemented on a variable-friction isolation system whose slip force is regulated by an embedded piezoelectric actuator, and a seismic simulation test was conducted for this isolation system. The experimental results demonstrate that, as compared to a passive isolation system with various levels of added damping, the semi-active isolation system using the ABS-type controller has the better overall performance when both the far-field and the near-fault earthquakes with different PGA levels are considered.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.49-65
• /
• 2013

This article presents the statistical characteristics of elastic floor acceleration spectra that represent the peak response demand of non-structural components attached to a nonlinear supporting frame. For this purpose, a set of stiff and flexible general moment resisting frames with periods of 0.3-3.6 sec. are analyzed using forty-nine near-field strong ground motion records. Peak accelerations are derived for each single degree of freedom non-structural component, supported by the above mentioned frames, through a direct-integration time-history analysis. These accelerations are obtained by Floor Acceleration Response Spectrum (FARS) method. They are statistically analyzed in the next step to achieve a better understanding of their height-wise distributions. The factors that affect FARS values are found in the relevant state of the art. Here, they are summarized to evaluate the amplification and/or reduction of FARS values especially when the supporting structures undergo inelastic behavior. The properties of FARS values are studied in three regions: long-period, fundamental-period and short-period. Maximum elastic acceleration response of non-structural component, mounted on inelastic frames, depends on the following factors: inelasticity intensity and modal periods of supporting structure; natural period, damping ratio and location of non-structural component. The FARS values, corresponded to the modal periods of supporting structure, are strongly reduced beyond elastic domain. However, they could be amplified in the transferring period domain between the mentioned modal periods. In the next step, the amplification and/or reduction of FARS values, caused by inelastic behavior of supporting structure, are calculated. A parameter called the response acceleration reduction factor ($R_{acc}$), has been previously used for far-field earthquakes. The feasibility of extending this parameter for near-field motions is focused here, suggested repeatedly in the relevant sources. The nonlinearity of supporting structure is included in ($R_{acc}$) for better estimation of maximum non-structural component absolute acceleration demand, which is ordinarily neglected in the seismic design provisions.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.93-102
• /
• 2010

In this study, a smart sky-bridge composed of MR damper and FPS has been proposed and vibration control performance of a smart sky-bridge for the connected buildings was investigated. To this end, 10-story and 20-story building structures connected by a smart sky-bridge were selected as example structures and El Centro and Kobe earthquakes, which have near and far fault ground motion characteristics respectively, were used for time history analyses. In order to effectively control the smart sky-bridge, fuzzy logic controller was developed and multi-objective genetic algorithm was used to optimize fuzzy logic controllers. Based on optimization results, it has been seen that there is a trade-off between seismic responses of 10-story and 20-story buildings and a suite of Pareto optimal solutions of fuzzy logic controllers for seismic response control can be obtained by multi-objective genetic algorithm. It is shown from numerical study that seismic responses of adjacent buildings can be efficiently controlled by using a smart sky-bridge.