• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.308-319
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• 2005

Piezo-ceramics are special materials which transform energy between mechanical and electrical forms. Bender-elements are composite materials consisting of thin piezo-ceramics and elastic shims, and are widely used as actuators and transducers in the field of electronics, robotics, autos and mechatronics utilizing the effectiveness of energy transformation capability. In geotechnical engineering, commercial bender-elements are used in laboratory as source and receiver in the measurements of soil stiffness. The elements were built by using various metal shims sandwiched between piezo-ceramics and coating over the composite in the research. A pair of elements were buried in a concrete block and used as source and receiver to measure the stiffness of the concrete. The test results were verified by comparing with the resonant column testing results. In a preliminary stage of the development of an in-situ seismic testing equipment using bender-elements for soft clay materials, shear waves were generated and measured by burying the elements in the barrel of kaolinite and water mixture. The measured shear wave signals were so distinct for the first-arrival pick that applicability of the elements in the field measurements is very promising.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.265-276
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• 2009

Various Pushover analysis methodologies have evolved as an easy as well as designers-friendly alternative of nonlinear dynamic analysis for estimation of the inelastic demands of structures under seismic loading for performance based design. In fact, the established nonlinear dynamic analysis to assess the same, demands considerable analytical and computational background and rigor as well as intuitive insight into inelastic behavior for judging suitability of the results and its interpretation and hence may not be used in design office for frequent practice. In this context, the simple and viable alternative of Pushover analysis methodologies can be accepted if its efficacy is thoroughly judged over all possible varieties of the problems. Though this burning issue has invited some research efforts in this direction, still a complete picture evolving very clear guidelines for use of these alternate methodologies require much more detailed studies, providing idea about how the accuracy is influenced due to various combinations of basic parameters regulating inelastic dynamic response of the structures. The limited study presented in the paper aims to achieve this end to the extent possible. The study intends to identify the range of applicability of the technique and compares the efficacy of various alternative Pushover analysis schemes to general class of problems. Thus, the paper may prove useful in judicial use of Pushover analysis methodologies for performance based design with reasonable accuracy and relative ease.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.51-59
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• 2004

The evaluation of shear modulus is very important in various fields of civil engineering. In this paper, the site characterization method using HWAW method is applied to determine shear wave velocity profile of two test sites in order to verify the field applicability of HWAW method. Shear wave velocity profiles by HWAW method are compared with shear wave velocity profiles by SASW test and PS-Suspension Logging test. Through field applications, it is shown that HWAW method can minimize the effect of noise and lateral non-homogeneity of the site and determine detailed local shear wave velocity profile of site.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.203-213
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• 2004

This study investigates the seismic responses of two structures connected by a sky-bridge equipped with viscoelastic dampers (VED) at the bridge-building connections. The applicability of the method is verified first by observing RMS (root-mean-squared) responses of two-degrees-of-freedom systems subjected to white noise ground excitation. Then model structures with various number of stories are analyzed using earthquake ground motions to observe the effect of the varying size of VED on the reduction of dynamic responses. According to the analysis results, there exists a proper size of VED which minimizes the structural responses. It is also observed that the effectiveness of VED increases as the difference of natural frequencies between the two connected structures increases.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.6-17
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• 2002

Refraction tomography was developed to interpret subsurface velocity structure easily in topographic conditions. It was applied to synthetic refraction data to find the factors for optimization of applicability of refraction tomography such as configuration of profiling and its length, spacing of geophones and sources and topographic conditions. Also, low velocity layer near VSP hole could be detected by joint inversion with refraction and VSP data. Continuity of subsurface velocity structure in two different spread lines for area of house land development was good in case of applying our algorithm and velocity structure was classified quantitatively to evaluate rippability for engineering works.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.66 no.1
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• pp.139-149
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• 2018

Many practical engineering problems are associated with nonlinear systems subjected to nonstationary random excitations. Equivalent linearization methods are commonly used to seek for approximate solutions to this kind of problems. Compared to various approaches developed in the frequency and mixed time-frequency domains, though directly solving the system equation of motion in the time domain would improve computation efficiency, only limited studies are available. Considering the fact that the orthogonal functions have been widely used to effectively improve the accuracy of the approximated responses and reduce the computational cost in various engineering applications, an orthogonal-function-based equivalent linearization method in the time domain has been proposed in the current paper for nonlinear systems subjected to nonstationary random excitations. In the numerical examples, the proposed approach is applied to a SDOF system with a set-up spring and a SDOF Duffing oscillator subjected to stationary and nonstationary excitations. In addition, its applicability to nonlinear MDOF systems is examined by a 3DOF Duffing system subjected to nonstationary excitation. Results show that the proposed method can accurately predict the nonlinear system response and the formulation of the proposed approach allows it to be capable of handling any general type of nonstationary random excitations, such as the seismic load.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.94-100
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• 2000

Many nondestructive test methods used for metallic materials have some limit in application to concrete materials due to their heterogeneity. Impact echo method utilizes the resonance frequency of reflected seismic waves from defects or the boundary between two materials and can be applied to investigate the interior of concrete structures. In this study, a field data acquisition system for the impact echo method was assembled and field tests under various conditions were performed. The impact echo method was applied for investigating thickness/defects/backfilling of concrete structures/tunnel lining/airport pavement. The applicability of the impact echo method to the civil engineering field was substantiated by providing results within $10\%$ errors.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2019

This study investigates the applicability of composite polyurea to contain fiber reinforcement like fiber glass, steel fiber and carbon nanotube. Polyurea as elastomer is an excellent water-proofing material with many mechanical characteristics such as high tensile strength, ductility, high rate of expansion and contraction, and so on. The reinforcing fibers can be utilized for improving the load-carrying capacity of concrete structures. The polyurea plays a role to improve the ductility and toughness. Composite polyurea takes the mechanical advantages of the fibers and the polyurea. The test variables include the type of reinforcing fiber, its spraying thickness, and its weight ratio contained in the composite polyurea. It is observed that the load-carrying capacity, and the ductility and toughness are improved with the increase in the spraying thickness and the weight ratio contained in the composite polyurea. It is expected that the composite polyurea can be widely utilized in enhancing the structural and seismic performance.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.31-38
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• 2021

The precast-buckling restrained braces(PC-BRB) reinforced with engineering plastics that can compensate for the disadvantages in the manufacturing process of the existing buckling restrained brace. In this study, to examine the applicability of PC-BRB to actual structures, example structures similar to school facilities were selected and the reinforcement effect was analyzed analytically according to the damping design procedure of PC-BRB. Load-displacement curve through the incremental loading test appeared similar to the bilinear curve. Applying test result, Analytical model of PC-BRB model was constructed and applied to the example structure. As a result of the analysis, the PC-BRB showed stable hysteresis behavior without lowering the strength, and the inter story drift ratio and the shear force were reduced due to the damping effect. In addition, the reduction ratio of the shear force was similar to the reduction ratio assumed when designing the damping device.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.03a
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• pp.182-187
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• 2010

In the various fields of Civil Engineering, shear modulus is very important input parameters to design many constructions and to analyze ground behaviors. In general, a shear wave velocity profile is decided by various experiments before constructing a structure and, analysis and design are carried out by using decided shear wave velocity profile of the site. However, if civil structures are started to construct, the shear wave velocity will be increased more than before constructions because of confining pressure increase by the load of structure. The evaluation of the change in shear wave velocity profile is used very importantly when maintaining, managing, reinforcing and regenerating existing structures. In this study, a non-destructively geotechnical investigation method by using the HWAW method is applied to an evaluation of change in properties of the site according to construction. Generally, the space for experiments is narrow when underground of existing or on-going structures is evaluate, so a prompt non-destructive experiment is required. This prompt non-destructive experiment would be performed by various in-situ seismic methods. However, most of in-situ seismic methods need more space for experiments, so it is difficult to be applied. The HWAW method using the Harmonic wavelet transforms, which is based on time-frequency analysis, determines shear wave velocity profile. It consists of a source as well as short receiver spacing that is 1~3m, and is able to determine a shear wave velocity profile from surface to deep depth by one test on a space. As the HWAW method uses only the signal portion of the maximum local signal/noise ratio to determine a profile, it provides reliability shear modulus profile such as under construction or noisy situation by minimizing effects of noise from diverse vibration on a construction site or urban area. To estimate the applicability of the proposed method, field tests were performed in the change of geotechnical properties according to constructing a minimized modeling bent. Through this study, the change of geotechnical properties of the site was effectively evaluated according to construction of a structure.