• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.69-76
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• 2017

Seismic analyses of a pile under a large rigid basement foundation embedded in the homogeneous soil layer were performed practically by a response displacement method assuming a sinusoidal wave form. However, it is hard to take into account the characteristics of a large mat foundation and a heterogeneous soil layer with the response displacement method. The response displacement method is relevant to the 2D problems for longitudinal structures such as tunnel, underground cave structure, etc., but might not be relevant with isolated foundations for building structures. In this study, seismic pile analysis by a pseudo 3D finite element method was carried out to compare numerical results with results of the response displacement method considering 3D characteristics of a foundation-soil system which is important for the building foundation analyses. Study results show that seismic analyses results of a response displacement method are similar to those of a pseudo 3D numerical method for stiff and dense soil layers, but they are too conservative for a soft soil layer inducing large soil pressures on the foundation wall and large pile displacements due to ignored foundation rigidity and resistance.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.110-118
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• 2018

Due to recent earthquakes, there is a growing awareness that Korea is not a safe zone for earthquakes any more. Therefore, the review of various aspects of the seismic safety of the infrastructures are being carried out. Because of the characteristics of the underground structure buried in the ground, the electric power utility tunnels must be considered not only for the inertia and load capacity of the structure itself but also the characteristics of the surrounding soils. An extensive and accurate numerical analysis is inevitably required in order to consider the interaction with the ground, but it is difficult to apply the soil-structure interaction analyses, which generally requires high cost and extensive time, to all electric power utility tunnel structures. In this study, the major design variables including soil characteristics are considered as independent variables, and the seismic safety factor, which is the result of the numerical analysis, is considered as a dependent variable. Thus, a method is proposed to select vulnerable electric power utility tunnels with low seismic safety factor while excluding costly and time-consuming numerical analyses through the direct correlation analysis between independent and dependent variables. Equations of boundary limits were derived based on the distribution of the seismic safety factor and the cover depth and rebar amounts with high correlation relationship. Consequently, a very efficient and simple approach is proposed to select vulnerable electric power utility tunnels without intensive numerical analyses. Among the 108 electric power utility tunnels that were investigated in this paper, 30% were screened as fragile structures, and it is confirmed that the screening method is valid by checking the safety factors of the fragile structure. The approach is relatively very simple to use and easy to expand, and can be conveniently applied to additional data to be obtained in the future.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.263-271
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• 2008

3D seismic tomography technique was assessed for applicability of developed 3D tomography algorithm based on Fresnel volume in the dam-planned area. Reconstructed 3D tomogram based on Fresnel volume and Fast Marching Method(FMM) reveals similar velocity structure to the other geotechnical survey results. With the correlation analysis between RMR data and seismic velocity information, it could provide reliable information of rock mass rate. The applicability of 3D seismic tomography was verified in this study. It would be expected to apply 3D tomography with new developed first arrival calculation and inversion algorithm to the engineering field economically.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.25 no.B
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• pp.115-120
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• 2005

Impact seismic wave method is a method for non-destructive testing of concrete structure using of stress wave which is propagate and reflected from internal flaws within concrete structure and external surface. In this study, we performed frequency domain method using impact seismic wave test for safety diagnosis of civil engineering structure. And reflection method which is used for one-dimensional target such as tunnel lining and transmission method are compared with each other.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.143-152
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• 2020

The wind design of buildings is typically based on strength provisions under ultimate loads. This is unlike the ductility-based approach used in seismic design, which allows inelastic actions to take place in the structure under extreme seismic events. This research investigates the application of a similar concept in wind engineering. In seismic design, the elastic forces resulting from an extreme event of high return period are reduced by a load reduction factor chosen by the designer and accordingly a certain ductility capacity needs to be achieved by the structure. Two reasons have triggered the investigation of this ductility-based concept under wind loads. Firstly, there is a trend in the design codes to increase the return period used in wind design approaching the large return period used in seismic design. Secondly, the structure always possesses a certain level of ductility that the wind design does not benefit from. Many technical issues arise when applying a ductility-based approach under wind loads. The use of reduced design loads will lead to the design of a more flexible structure with larger natural periods. While this might be beneficial for seismic response, it is not necessarily the case for the wind response, where increasing the flexibility is expected to increase the fluctuating response. This particular issue is examined by considering a case study of a sixty-five-story high-rise building previously tested at the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory at the University of Western Ontario using a pressure model. A three-dimensional finite element model is developed for the building. The wind pressures from the tested rigid model are applied to the finite element model and a time history dynamic analysis is conducted. The time history variation of the straining actions on various structure elements of the building are evaluated and decomposed into mean, background and fluctuating components. A reduction factor is applied to the fluctuating components and a modified time history response of the straining actions is calculated. The building components are redesigned under this set of reduced straining actions and its fundamental period is then evaluated. A new set of loads is calculated based on the modified period and is compared to the set of loads associated with the original structure. This is followed by non-linear static pushover analysis conducted individually on each shear wall module after redesigning these walls. The ductility demand of shear walls with reduced cross sections is assessed to justify the application of the load reduction factor "R".

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2017

The fundamental goal of this study is to minimize the uncertainty of the median fragility curve and to assess the structural vulnerability under earthquake excitation. Bayesian Inference with Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation has been presented for efficient collapse response assessment of the independent intake water tower. The intake tower is significantly used as a diversion type of the hydropower station for maintaining power plant, reservoir and spillway tunnel. Therefore, the seismic fragility assessment of the intake tower is a pivotal component for estimating total system risk of the reservoir. In this investigation, an asymmetrical independent slender reinforced concrete structure is considered. The Bayesian Inference method provides the flexibility to integrate the prior information of collapse response data with the numerical analysis results. The preliminary information of risk data can be obtained from various sources like experiments, existing studies, and simplified linear dynamic analysis or nonlinear static analysis. The conventional lognormal model is used for plotting the fragility curve using the data from time history simulation and nonlinear static pushover analysis respectively. The Bayesian Inference approach is applied for integrating the data from both analyses with the help of MCMC simulation. The method achieves meaningful improvement of uncertainty associated with the fragility curve, and provides significant statistical and computational efficiency.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.525-540
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• 2023

Because of a new seismic design code has been enacted in 2023, there is a need to evaluate whether the road tunnels in operation satisfies the requirements of the new code. Four tunnels that are considered to be most susceptible to damage. Time history analyses are performed to quantify their seismic performances. The input ground motions generated to fit both 2007 and 2023 codes are used to evaluate the effect of the motions on the calculated responses. The analyses show that all tunnels perform favorably and satisfies the requirements successfully. Therefore, retrofit or reinforcement are deemed as unnecessary.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.167-176
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• 1993

The high resolution studies for shallow seismic reflection are carried out using 24-channel seismograph and the high sensitivity geophone(50-500Hz). In order to study the underground structures such as small faults, fractures, cracks and cavities, it is of great importance to enhance high resolution of the seisrnic records for the targets vertically and laterally. In analysis of high resolution seismic reflection, Nyquist frequency($F_N$) should be lager than the highest frequency in the records and the highest wave number should not be exceed the Nyquist wave number($1/2{\Delta}x$). The highest frequency above the Nyquist will be removed using low pass filter or antialias filter. The trace interval Ax should be taken into account so that the highest wave number(f/v) can be less than $1/2{\Delta}x$. The Fraunhofer diffraction of a hyperbola seismic section above the tunnel appeares on the common offset method, and little first arrivals of direct wave on the single-end shooting, delayed strong impulsive reflections are also shown above the tunnel. Ray Method(Cherveney and Psencik, 1983) also represents the same results that the reflected waves from the tunnel are delayed and single impulsive with little first arrivals, while transrnitted waves through the tunnel are delayed with low frequency.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.13-24
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• 2023

Tunnels may undergo a larger or a smaller response compared with the free-field soil. In the pseudo-static procedure, the response of the tunnel is most often characterized by a curve that relates the racking ratio (R) with the flexibility ratio (F), where R represents the ratio of the tunnel response with respect to the free-field vibration and F is the relative stiffness of the tunnel and the surrounding soil. A set of analytical and empirical curves that do not account for the depth and the aspect ratio of the tunnel are typically used in practice. In this study, a series of dynamic analyses are conducted to develop a set of F-R_m relations for use in a frame analysis method. R_m is defined as an adjusted R where the rocking mode of deformation is removed and only the racking deformation is extracted. The numerical model is validated against centrifuge test recordings. The influence of aspect ratio, buried depth of tunnel on results is investigated. The results show that R_m increases with the increase of the buried depth and the aspect ratio. The widely used F-R relations are highlighted to be different compared with the obtained results in this study. Therefore, the updated F-R_m relations with proposed equations are recommended to be used in practice design. The rocking response decreases with either the decrease of the difference of stiffness between surrounding soil and tunnel or the larger aspect ratio of the tunnel section.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.119-128
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• 2016

In a performance-based design, the structural safety is estimated from pre-defined damage states and corresponding damage indices. Both damage states and damage indices are well defined for above-ground structures, but very limited studies have been performed on underground structures. In this study, we define the damage states and damage indices of a cut-and-cover box tunnel which is one of typical structures used in metro systems, under a seismic excitation from a series of inelastic frame analyses. Three damage states are defined in terms of the number of plastic hinges that develop within the structure. The damage index is defined as the ratio of the elastic moment to the yield moment. Through use of the proposed index, the inelastic behavior and failure mechanism of box tunnels can be simulated and predicted through elastic analysis. In addition, the damage indices are linked to free-field shear strains. Because the free-field shear strain can be easily calculated from a 1D site response analysis, the proposed method can be readily used in practice. Further studies are needed to determine the range of shear strains and associated uncertainties for various types of tunnels and site profiles. However, the inter-linked platform of damage state - damage index - shear wave velocity - shear strain provides a novel approach for estimating the inelastic response of tunnels, and can be widely used in practice for seismic designs.