• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.285-294
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• 2024

Seismic fragility curves present the conditional probability of damage to target structures due to external seismic load and are widely used in various ways. When constructing such a seismic fragility curve, it is essential to consider various types and numbers of ground motions. In general, the earthquake occurrence characteristics of an area where the target structure of the seismic fragility curve exists are analyzed, and based on this, appropriate ground motions are selected to derive the seismic fragility curve. If the number of selected ground motions is large, the diversity of ground motions is considered, but a large amount of computational time is required. Conversely, if the number of ground motions is too small, the diversity of ground motions cannot be considered, which may distort the seismic fragility curve. Therefore, this study analyzed the relationship between the number of ground motions considered when deriving the seismic fragility curve and the parameters of the seismic fragility curve. Using two example structures, numerical analysis was performed by selecting a random number of ground motions from a total of two hundred, and a seismic fragility curve was derived based on the results. Analysis of the relationship of the parameter of the seismic fragility curve and the number of selected ground motions was performed. As the number of ground motions considered increases, uncertainty in ground motion selection decreases, and when deriving seismic fragility curves considering the same number of ground motions, uncertainty increases relatively as the degree of freedom of the target structure increases. However, considering a relatively large number of ground motions, uncertainty appeared insignificant regardless of increased degrees of freedom. Finally, it is possible that the increase in the number of ground motions could lower the epistemic uncertainty and thus improve the reliability of the results.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.557-566
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• 2019

The evaluation of the seismic hazard for a given site is to estimate the seismic ground motion at the surface. This is the result of the combination of the action of the seismic source, which generates seismic waves, the propagation of these waves between the source and the site, and site local conditions. The aim of this work is to evaluate the sensitivity of dynamic response of extended structures to spatial variable ground motions (SVGM). All factors of spatial variability of ground motion are considered, especially local site effect. In this paper, a method is presented to simulate spatially varying earthquake ground motions. The scheme for generating spatially varying ground motions is established for spatial locations on the ground surface with varying site conditions. In this proposed method, two steps are necessary. Firstly, the base rock motions are assumed to have the same intensity and are modelled with a filtered Tajimi-Kanai power spectral density function. An empirical coherency loss model is used to define spatial variable seismic ground motions at the base rock. In the second step, power spectral density function of ground motion on surface is derived by considering site amplification effect based on the one dimensional seismic wave propagation theory. Several dynamics analysis of a curved viaduct to various cases of spatially varying seismic ground motions are performed. For comparison, responses to uniform ground motion, to spatial ground motions without considering local site effect, to spatial ground motions with considering coherency loss, phase delay and local site effects are also calculated. The results showed that the generated seismic signals are strongly conditioned by the local site effect. In the same sense, the dynamic response of the viaduct is very sensitive of the variation of local geological conditions of the site. The effect of neglecting local site effect in dynamic analysis gives rise to a significant underestimation of the seismic demand of the structure.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2016

This study is the sequel of a companion paper (I. Algorithm) for assessment of the seismic performance evaluation of structure using ground motions selected by the proposed algorithm. To evaluate the effect of the correlation structures of selected ground motions on the seismic responses of a structure, three sets of ground motions are selected with and without consideration of the correlation structure. Nonlinear response history analyses of a 20-story reinforced concrete frame are conducted using the three sets of ground motions. This study shows that the seismic responses of the frames vary according to ground motion selection and correlation structures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.115-128
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• 2022

One common method to select input ground motions to predict dynamic behavior of structures subjected to seismic excitation requires spectral acceleration (S_a) match target mean response spectrum. However, dispersion of ground motions, which explicitly affects the structural response, is rarely discussed in this method. Generally, selecting ground motions matching target mean and variance has been utilized as an appropriate method to predict reliable seismic response. The goal of this paper is to investigate the impact of target spectra variance of ground motions on structural seismic response. Two sets of ground motions with different target variances (zero variance and minimum variance larger than inherent variance of the target spectrum) are selected as input to two different structures. Structural responses at different heights are compared, in terms of peak, mean and dispersion. Results show that increase of target spectra variance tends to increase peak floor acceleration, peak deformation and dispersions of response of interest remarkably. To short-period structures, dispersion increase ratios of seismic response are close to that of S_a of input ground motions at the first period. To long-period structures, dispersions of floor acceleration and floor response spectra increase more significantly at the bottom, while dispersion increase ratios of IDR and deformation are close to that of S_a of input ground motions at the first period. This study could further provide useful information on selecting appropriate ground motion to predict seismic behavior of different types of structures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.399-409
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• 2018

The dynamic response and seismic damage of single-layer reticulated shells in the near field of a rupturing fault can be different from those in the far field due to the different characteristics in the ground motions. To investigate the effect, the dynamic response and seismic damage of this spatial structures subjected to two different ground motions were numerically studied by nonlinear dynamic response analysis. Firstly, twelve seismic waves with an apparent velocity pulse, including horizontal and vertical seismic waves, were selected to represent the near-fault ground motion characteristics. In contrast, twelve seismic records recorded at the same site from other or same events where the epicenter was far away from the site were employed as the far-fault ground motions. Secondly, the parametric modeling process of Kiewitt single-layer reticulated domes using the finite-element package ANSYS was described carefully. Thirdly, a nonlinear time-history response analysis was carried out for typical domes subjected to different earthquakes, followed by analyzing the dynamic response and seismic damage of this spatial structures under two different ground motions based on the maximum nodal displacements and Park-Ang index as well as dissipated energy. The results showed that this spatial structures in the near field of a rupturing fault exhibit a larger dynamic response and seismic damage than those obtained from far-fault ground motions. In addition, the results also showed that the frequency overlap between structures and ground motions has a significant influence on the dynamic response of the single-layer reticulated shells, the duration of the ground motions has little effects.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.3_4
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• pp.231-248
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• 2012

In this study, a systematic investigation is carried out on the seismic behaviour of plane moment resisting steel frames (MRF) to repeated strong ground motions. Such a sequence of earthquakes results in a significant damage accumulation in a structure because any rehabilitation action between any two successive seismic motions cannot be practically materialised due to lack of time. In this work, thirty-six MRF which have been designed for seismic and vertical loads according to European codes are first subjected to five real seismic sequences which are recorded at the same station, in the same direction and in a short period of time, up to three days. Furthermore, the examined frames are also subjected to sixty artificial seismic sequences. This investigation shows that the sequences of ground motions have a significant effect on the response and, hence, on the design of MRF. Additionally, it is concluded that ductility demands, behaviour factor and seismic damage of the repeated ground motions can be satisfactorily estimated using appropriate combinations of the corresponding demands of single ground motions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.583-593
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• 2018

Seismic performance is particularly important for life-line structures, especially for long-span transmission tower line system subjected to multi-component ground motions. However, the influence of multi-component seismic loads and the coupling effect between supporting towers and transmission lines are not taken into consideration in the current seismic design specifications. In this research, shake table tests are conducted to investigate the performance of long-span transmission tower-line system under multi-component seismic excitations. For reproducing the genuine structural responses, the reduced-scale experimental model of the prototype is designed and constructed based on the Buckingham's theorem. And three commonly used seismic records are selected as the input ground motions according to the site soil condition of supporting towers. In order to compare the experimental results, the dynamic responses of transmission tower-line system subjected to single-component and two-component ground motions are also studied using shake table tests. Furthermore, an empirical model is proposed to evaluate the acceleration and member stress responses of transmission tower-line system subjected to multi-component ground motions. The results demonstrate that the ground motions with multi-components can amplify the dynamic response of transmission tower-line system, and transmission lines have a significant influence on the structural response and should not be neglected in seismic analysis. The experimental results can provide a reference for the seismic design and analysis of long-span transmission tower-line system subjected to multi-component ground motions.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.909-922
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• 2014

In this paper, we present an alternative seismic design strategy for cable stayed bridges with concrete pylons when subjected to strong ground motions. The comparison of conventional seismic design using supplemental dampers (strategy A) and the new strategy using nonlinear seismic design of pylon columns (strategy B) is exemplified by one typical medium span cable stayed bridge subjected to strong ground motions from 1999 Taiwan Chi-Chi earthquake and 2008 China Wenchuan earthquake. We first conducted the optimization of damper parameters according to strategy A in response to the distinct features that strong ground motions contain. And then we adopted strategy B to carry out seismic analysis by introducing the elastic-plastic elements that allowing plasticity development in the pylon columns. The numerical results show that via strategy A, the earthquake induced structural responses can be kept in the desired range provided with the proper damping parameters, however, the extra cost of unusual dampers will be inevitable. For strategy B, the pylon columns may not remain elastic and certain plasticity developed, but the seismic responses of the foundation will be greatly decreased, meanwhile, the displacement at the top of pylon seems to be not affected much by the yielding of pylon columns, which indicates the pylon nonlinear design can be an alternative design strategy when strong ground motions have to be considered for the bridge.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.137-144
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• 2019

For the structures near the seismogenic fault, the evaluation of seismic performance against near-fault ground motions is important as well as for design ground motions. In this study, characteristics of seismic behaviors and seismic performance of the pile-bent bridge constructed on the thick soft soil site with various weak soil layers were analyzed. The input ground motions were synthesized by the directivity pulse parameters for intra-plate regions. The ground motion acceleration histories of each layer were obtained by one-dimensional site response analysis. Each soil layer was modeled by equivalent linear springs, and multi-support excitations with different input ground motions at each soil spring were applied for nonlinear seismic analyses. The analysis result by the near-fault ground motions and ground motions matched to design spectra were compared. In case of the near fault ground motion input, the bridge behaved within the elastic range but the location of the maximum moment occurred was different from the result of design ground motion input.

• Computational Structural Engineering : An International Journal
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.139-150
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• 2001

An initial approach for the identification of physical causes underlying the spatial coherency of seismic ground motions it presented. The approach relies on the observation that amplitude and phase variability of seismic data recorded over extended areas around the amplitude and phase of a common, coherent component are correlated. It suffices then to examine the physical causes for the amplitude variability in the seismic motions, in order to recognize the causes for the phase variability and, consequently, the spatial coherency. In this study, the effect of randomness in the shear wave velocity at a site on the amplitude variability of the surface motions mi investigated by means of simulations. The amplitude variability of the simulated motions around the amplitude of the common component is contained within envelope functions, the shape of which suggests, on a preliminary basis, the trend of the decay of coherency with frequency.