• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.531-541
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• 2020

This paper demonstrates the possibility of evaluating the safety of a building right after an earthquake using consumer-grade surveillance cameras installed in the building. Two cameras are used in each story to extract the time history of interstory drift during the earthquake based on camera calibration, stereo triangulation, and image template matching techniques. The interstory drift of several markers on the rigid floor are used to estimate the motion of the geometric center using the least square approach, then the horizontal interstory drift of any location on the floor can be estimated. A shaking table collapse test of a steel building was conducted to verify the proposed approach. The results indicate that the accuracy of the interstory drift measured by the cameras is high enough to estimate the damage state of the building based on the fragility curve of the interstory drift ratio. On the other hand, the interstory drift measured by an accelerometer tends to underestimate the damage state when residual interstory drift occurs because the low frequency content of the displacement signal is eliminated when high-pass filtering is employed for baseline correction.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.287-299
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• 2022

Rather than using smartphones as seismometers with designated locations and orientations, this study proposes to employ crowds' smartphones in buildings to perform fast safety assessment of buildings. The principal advantage of using crowds' smartphones is the potential to monitor the safety of millions of buildings without hardware costs, installation labor, and long-term maintenance. This study's goal is to measure the maximum interstory drift ratios during earthquake excitation using crowds' smartphones. Beacons inside the building are required to provide the location and relevant building information for the smartphones via Bluetooth. Wi-Fi Direct is employed between nearby smartphones to conduct peer-to-peer time synchronization and exchange the acceleration data measured. An algorithm to align the orientation between nearby smartphones is proposed, and the performance of the orientation alignment, interstory drift measurement, and damage level estimation are studied numerically. Finally, the proposed approach's performance is verified using large-scale shaking table tests of a scaled steel building. The results presented in this study illustrate the potential to use crowds' smartphones with the proposed approach to record building motions during earthquakes and use those data to estimate buildings' safety based on the interstory drift ratios measured.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.29-44
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• 2013

Post earthquake fire (PEF) can lead to the collapse of buildings that are partially damaged in a prior ground-motion that occurred immediately before the fire. The majority of standards and codes for the design of structures against earthquake ignore the possibility of PEF and thus buildings designed with those codes could be too weak when subjected to a fire after an earthquake. An investigation based on sequential analysis inspired by FEMA356 is performed here on the Life-Safety performance level of structures designed to the ACI 318-08 code after they are subjected to two different earthquake levels with PGA of 0.35 g and 0.25 g. This is followed by a four-hour fire analysis of the weakened structure, from which the time it takes for the weakened structure to collapse is calculated. As a benchmark, the fire analysis is also performed for undamaged structure and before occurrence of earthquake. The results show that the vulnerability of structures increases dramatically when a previously damaged structure is exposed to PEF. The results also show the damaging effects of post earthquake fire are exacerbated when initiated from second and third floor. Whilst the investigation is for a certain class of structures (regular building, intermediate reinforced structure, 3 stories), the results confirm the need for the incorporation of post earthquake fire in the process of analysis and design and provides some quantitative measures on the level of associated effects.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.105-108
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• 2005

In damage investigation of building structures suffering from earthquake, estimation of residual seismic capacity is essential in order to access the safety of the building against aftershocks and to judge the necessity of repair and restoration. It has been proposed that an evaluation method for post-earthquake seismic capacity of reinforced concrete buildings based. on the residual energy dissipation capacity (the residual seismic capacity ratio )in lateral force-displacement curve of structural members. The proposed method was adopted in the Japanese 'Damage Level Classification Standard' revised in 200l. To evaluate the residual seismic capacity of RC column, experimental tests with positive and negative cyclic loading was carried out using RC building column specimen. Parameters used by the experiment are deformability and member proportion. From the test results, it is appropriated that the residual seismic capacity of RC buildings damaged by earthquakes is evaluated using the method in the Guideline.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.3-11
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• 2019

The recent earthquake of Pohang (M5.4) and the Gyeongju earthquake (M5.8) suggested the possibility of a strong earthquake in Korea and reminded us that the Korea is no longer an earthquake-safe zone. In the disaster recovery stage in a disaster like an earthquake, the investigation of the damage situation and the safety assessment of the building serve to provide important information for the initial action such as establishment of the recovery strategy and rescue of the survivor. However, the research that depends on manpower can not cope with the difficulty of processing a large number of doses in a short time, and the expertise of the manpower must be taken into consideration, which may result in delayed initial action. In this study, we propose an rapid safety evaluation technique of building using unmanned aerial vehicle which evaluates the performance and safety of buildings by integrating conventional safety inspection method with unmanned aerial vehicle technology and developed evaluation method of each evaluation factor. In order to verify this, the buildings damaged by the earthquake in Pohang were checked and compared using this system. The results are consistent with the results of the existing emergency earthquake risk assessment. As a result, the possibility of checking the emergency safety using the unmanned aerial vehicle for the damaged structures in case of a large-scale disaster such as an earthquake was confirmed.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.15-24
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• 2004

This paper describes a GIS-based assessment of residential building damage caused by the 1994 Northridge earthquake in which the fractions of existing buildings damaged at various percentages of replacement cost are related to a range of seismic parameters. The assessment uses data from safety inspection reports and tax assessor records, both of which were geocoded and linked to seismic parameters derived from strong motion records at 164 different sites. The paper also describes a GIS-based pattern recognition algorithm for identifying locations of most intense building damage. The algorithm provides a framework for rapidly screening remote sensing data and dispatching emerging services.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.141-154
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• 2023

After an earthquake, information regarding potential damage to buildings close to the epicenter is very important during the initial emergency response. This study proposes the use of crowdsourced measured acceleration response data collected from smartphones located within buildings to perform system identification of building structures during earthquake excitations, and the feasibility of the proposed approach is studied. The principal advantage of using crowdsourced smartphone data is the potential to determine the condition of millions of buildings without incurring hardware, installation, and long-term maintenance costs. This study's goal is to assess the feasibility of identifying the lowest fundamental natural frequencies of buildings without knowing the orientations and precise locations of the crowds' smartphones in advance. Both input-output and output-only identification methods are used to identify the lowest fundamental natural frequencies of numerical finite element models of a real building structure. The effects of time synchronization and the orientation alignment between nearby smartphones on the identification results are discussed, and the proposed approach's performance is verified using large-scale shake table tests of a scaled steel building. The presented results illustrate the potential of using crowdsourced smartphone data with the proposed approach to identify the lowest fundamental natural frequencies of building structures, information that should be valuable in making emergency response decisions.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.351-364
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• 2019

Earthquake and fire are both severe disasters for building structures. Since earthquake-induced damage will weaken the structure and reduce its fire endurance, it is important to investigate the behavior of structure subjected to post-earthquake fire. In this paper, steel-concrete composite beam-to-column joints were tested under fire with pre-damage caused by cyclic loads. Beforehand, three control specimens with no pre-damage were tested to capture the static, cyclic and fire-resistant performance of intact joints. Experimental data including strain, deflection and temperature recorded at several points are presented and analyzed to quantify the influence of cyclic damage on fire resistance. It is indicated that the fire endurance of damaged joints decreased with the increase of damage level, mainly due to faster heating-up rate after cyclic damage. However, cracks induced by cyclic loading in concrete are found to mitigate the concrete spalling at elevated temperatures. Moreover, the relationship between fire resistance and damage degree is revealed from experimental results, which can be applied in fire safety design and is worthwhile for further research.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2022.04a
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• pp.87-88
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• 2022

For an earthquake-safe urban environment, the Republic of Korea conducts seismic performance evaluation in accordance with laws and guidelines to assign safety ratings and implement necessary management measures such as repairs and reinforcements. In the seismic performance evaluation result, structures lacking in preparation for earthquakes are prioritized and classified into measures such as repair, reinforcement, or careful observation to respond to physical risks such as earthquakes. Such repair and reinforcement work is not a one-time thing, but it is necessary to further enhance the effect through continuous follow-up observation. In this study, the location of the vertical and horizontal displacement measuring part of the construction part is displayed so that the post-construction status of the reinforcement construction part can be visually checked by identifying the problems in the process of post-monitoring in 2022 for the maintenance and reinforcement work of local governments' public facilities carried out in 2021. We propose a plan to institutionalize the installation of, inspection tools, and crack gauges at certain locations in the construction department, and to have facility managers periodically inspect and manage them with a smartphone program or the 'Facility Autonomous Safety Inspection' app.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.41-50
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• 2009

Following an earthquake, the major concerns for damaged buildings are their safety/risk in the event of aftershocks, and thus a quantitative damage assessment must be performed in order to evaluate their residual seismic capacity and to identify necessary actions for the damaged buildings. Post-event damage evaluation is therefore as essential for the quick recovery of a damaged community as pre-event seismic evaluation and strengthening of vulnerable buildings. The objective of this study is to develop a post-earthquake seismic evaluation method for RC frames with URM infill wall for typical school buildings. For this purpose, full-scale, one-bay, single-story specimens having different axial loads in columns are tested under cyclic loadings. During the tests, residual crack widths, which can also be found in damaged buildings, are measured in order to estimate the residual seismic capacity from the observed damage. In this paper, the relationship between the measured residual crack width and the residual seismic capacity is discussed analytically and experimentally, and reduction factors are proposed to estimate the residual seismic capacity based on the observed damage level.