• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.661-668
• /
• 2019

Seismic vulnerability assessment is a useful tool for rational safety analysis and planning of large and complex structural systems; it can deal with the effects of uncertainties on the performance of significant structural systems. In this study, an efficient dynamic reliability approach, probability density evolution methodology (PDEM), is proposed for seismic vulnerability analysis of earth dams. The PDEM provides the failure probability of different limit states for various levels of ground motion intensity as well as the mean value, standard deviation and probability density function of the performance metric of the earth dam. Combining the seismic reliability with three different performance levels related to the displacement of the earth dam, the seismic fragility curves are constructed without them being limited to a specific functional form. Furthermore, considering the seismic fragility analysis is a significant procedure in the seismic probabilistic risk assessment of structures, the seismic vulnerability results obtained by the dynamic reliability approach are combined with the results of probabilistic seismic hazard and seismic loss analysis to present and address the PDEM-based seismic probabilistic risk assessment framework by a simulated case study of an earth dam.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.35 no.6
• /
• pp.581-591
• /
• 2023

North Anatolian Fault Zone is tectonically active with recent earthquakes (Mw7.6 1999-Kocaeli and Mw7.2 1999-Düzce earthquakes) and it passes through Marmara region, which is highly industrialized, densely populated and economically important part of Turkey. Many power plants, located in Marmara region, are exposed to high seismic hazard. In this study, open source OpenQuake software has been used for the probabilistic earthquake hazard analysis of Marmara region and risk assessment for the specified energy facility. The SHARE project seismic zonation model has been used in the analysis with the regional sources, NGA GMPEs and site model logic trees. The earthquake hazard results have been compared with the former and existing earthquake resistant design regulations in Turkey, TSC 2007 and TBSCD 2018. In the scope of the study, the seismic hazard assessment for a typical natural gas combined cycle power plant located in Marmara region has been achieved. The seismic risk assessment has been accomplished for a typical control building located in the power plant using obtained seismic hazard results. The structural and non-structural fragility functions and a consequence model have been used in the seismic risk assessment. Based on the seismic hazard level with a 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years, considered for especially these type of critical structures, the ratios of structural and non-structural loss to the total building cost were obtained as 8.8% and 45.7%, respectively. The results of the study enable the practical seismic risk assessment of the critical facility located on different regions.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.2 no.3
• /
• pp.13-26
• /
• 1998

In view of the rapid development of economics and technology, perilous meteorological and geological conditions often cause natural disasters and result in severe loss of lives and properties in Taiwan. To promote multi-hazard mitigation strategies in an integrated a, pp.oach, the National Science Council established a National Science and Technology Program for Disaster Mitigation in January 1998. This program emphasizes on the implementation of research results in the National Disaster Management System. This paper describes the earthquake loss estimation methodology that is currently developed in Taiwan. Topics of potential earth science hazards (PESH) and building vulnerability analysis are described in detail.

• Computers and Concrete
• /
• v.2 no.5
• /
• pp.367-380
• /
• 2005

Recent earthquakes have shown that many of existing buildings in Iran sustain heavy damage due to defective seismic details. To assess vulnerability of one common type of buildings, which consists of low rise framed concrete structures, three defective and three standard columns have been tested under reversed cyclic load. The substandard specimens suffered in average 37% loss of strength and 45% loss of energy dissipation capacity relative to standard specimens, and this was mainly due to less lateral and longitudinal reinforcement and insufficient sectional dimensions. A relationship has been developed to introduce variation of plastic length under increasing displacement amplitude. At ultimate state, the length of plastic hinge is almost equal to full depth of section. Using calibrated hysteresis models, the response of different specimens under two earthquakes has been analyzed. The analysis indicated that the ratio between displacement demand and capacity of standard specimens is about unity and that of deficient ones is about 1.7.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.73 no.4
• /
• pp.447-454
• /
• 2020

Seismic isolation technology has a wide application to protect bridges from earthquake damage, a new designed bridge pier with seismic isolation are provided for railways in seismic regions of China. The pier with rocking isolation is a self-centering system under small and moderate earthquakes, and the unbonded prestressed tendons are used to prevent overturning under strong earthquakes. A numerical model based on pseudo-static testing results is presented to evaluate the seismic performance of isolation bridge piers, and is validated by the shaking table test. It is found that the rocking response and the loss of prestressing for the bridge pier increase with the increase of earthquake intensity. Besides, the intensity and spectral characteristics of input ground motion have great influence on displacement of the top and bottom of the bridge pier, while have less influence on the bending moment of the pier bottom. Experimental and numerical results show that the rocking-isolated piers presented in this study have good seismic performance, and it provides an alternative way for the railway bridge in the regions with high occurrence of earthquakes. Therefore, we provide the detailed procedures for seismic design of the rocking-isolated bridge pier, and a case study of the seismic isolation design with rocking piers is carried out to popularize the seismic isolation methods.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.53-58
• /
• 2021

Nuclear power plant's safety against seismic events is evaluated as risk values by probabilistic seismic safety assessment. The risk values vary by the seismic failure correlation between the structures, systems, and components (SSCs). However, most probabilistic seismic safety assessments idealized the seismic failure correlation between the SSCs as entirely dependent or independent. Such a consideration results in an inaccurate assessment result not reflecting real physical phenomenon. A nuclear power plant's seismic risk should be calculated with the appropriate seismic failure correlation coefficient between the SSCs for a reasonable outcome. An accident scenario that has an enormous impact on a nuclear power plant's seismic risk was selected. Moreover, the probabilistic seismic response analyses of a nuclear power plant were performed to derive appropriate seismic failure correlations between SSCs. Based on the analysis results, the seismic failure correlation coefficient between SSCs was derived, and the seismic fragility curve and core damage frequency of the loss of essential power event were calculated. Results were compared with the seismic fragility and core damage frequency of assuming the seismic failure correlations between SSCs were independent and entirely dependent.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.583-607
• /
• 2016

One of the main applications of seismic risk assessment is that an specific design could be selected for a bridge from different alternatives by considering damage losses alongside primary construction costs. Therefore, in this paper, the focus is on selecting the shape of pylon, which is a changeable component in the design of a cable-stayed bridge, as a double criterion decision-making problem. Different shapes of pylons include H, A, Y, and diamond shape, and the two criterion are construction costs and probable earthquake losses. In this research, decision-making is performed by using developed seismic risk assessment process as a powerful method. Considering the existing uncertainties in seismic risk assessment process, the combined incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) and uniform design (UD) based fragility assessment method is proposed, in which the UD method is utilized to provide the logical capacity models of the structure, and the IDA method is employed to give the probabilistic seismic demand model of structure. Using the aforementioned models and by defining damage states, the fragility curves of the bridge system are obtained for the different pylon shapes usage. Finally, by combining the fragility curves with damage losses and implementing the proposed cost-loss-benefit (CLB) method, the seismic risk assessment process is developed with financial-comparative approach. Thus, the optimal shape of the pylon can be determined using double criterion decision-making. The final results of decision-making study indicate that the optimal pylon shapes for the studied span of cable-stayed bridge are, respectively, H shape, diamond shape, Y shape, and A shape.

• Magazine of the Korea Institute for Structural Maintenance and Inspection
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.19-23
• /
• 2015

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2008

The seismic performance of a structure designed without consideration of seismic loading can be effectively enhanced through seismic rehabilitation. The appropriate level of rehabilitation should be determined based on the decision criteria that minimize the anticipated earthquake-related losses. To estimate the anticipated losses, seismic risk analysis should be performed considering the probabilistic characteristics of the hazard and the structural damage. This study presents the decision procedure in which the probabilistic seismic demand model is utilized for the effective estimation and minimization of the total seismic losses through seismic rehabilitation. The probability density function and the cumulative distribution function of the structural damage for a specified time period are established in a closed form, and are combined with the loss functions to derive the expected seismic loss. The procedure presented in this study could be effectively used for making decisions on the seismic rehabilitation of structural systems.

• Journal of KSNVE
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.535-543
• /
• 1999

The seismic qualification of the structures has been great concern in our engineering society with an effort to reduce the severe damages from an earthquake. However, on the contrary to the importance of the seismic qualification, the whole procedures are used to rely on the advanced countries who require various expenses for the qualification, which leads to the heavy loss of the foreign currency. In this study, the nuclear air conditioning system produced by LG Cable are adopted for the seismic qualification based on the guideline of NUREG, IEEE and ASME code. In order to confirm the validity of the present study, the results from the Ellis & Watts are compared with the present results and, also, the seismic qualification procedures and results mentioned herein are approved by KOPEC, which is a naitonal surveillance institute for the construction of nuclear power plant. From these results, the author confirmed the validity of the present seismic qualification procedures and results, which might be usefully applied to the other kind of seismic qualification of equipments.