• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.2
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• pp.229-244
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• 2022

This paper investigates the seismic performance of buildings designed using DDBD (Direct Displacement based Design) and FBD (Force based Design) approaches from the probabilistic viewpoint. It aims to estimate the collapse capacity of structures and assess the adequacy of seismic design codes. In this regard, (i) IDA (Incremental Dynamic Analysis) curves, (ii) interstory drift demand distribution curves, (iii) fragility curves, and (iv) the methodology provided by FEMA P-695 are applied to examine two groups of RC moment resistant frame buildings: 8-story structures with different plans, to study the effect of different span arrangements; and 3-, 7- and 12-story structures with a fixed plan, to study the dynamic behavior of the buildings. Structural modeling is performed in OpenSees software and validated using the results of an experimental model. It is concluded that increasing the building height would not significantly affect the response estimation of IDA and fragility curves of DDBD-designed structures, while the change in span arrangements is effective in estimating responses. In the investigation of the code adequacy, unlike the FBD approach, the DDBD can satisfy the performance criteria presented in FEMA P-695 and hence provide excellent performance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.426-433
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• 2017

This paper describes the development process, the innovative techniques used and insights gained from the latest integrated, full scope, multistate Level 2 PSA analysis conducted at the Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant (KKL), Switzerland. KKL is a modern single-unit General Electric Boiling Water Reactor (BWR/6) with Mark III Containment, and a power output of $3600MW_{th}/1200MW_e$, the highest among the five operating reactors in Switzerland. A Level 2 Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) analyses accident phenomena in nuclear power plants, identifies ways in which radioactive releases from plants can occur and estimates release pathways, magnitude and frequency. This paper attempts to give an overview of the advanced modeling techniques that have been developed and implemented for the recent KKL Level 2 PSA update, with the aim of systematizing the analysis and modeling processes, as well as complying with the relatively prescriptive Swiss requirements for PSA. The analysis provides significant insights into the absolute and relative importances of risk contributors and accident prevention and mitigation measures. Thanks to several newly developed techniques and an integrated approach, the KKL Level 2 PSA report exhibits a high degree of reviewability and maintainability, and transparently highlights the most important risk contributors to Large Early Release Frequency (LERF) with respect to initiating events, components, operator actions or seismic component failure probabilities (fragilities).

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.94-101
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• 2021

According to the Facility Management System (FMS) operated by the Korea Authority of Land & Infrastructure Safety, it is expected that the number of aging facilities that have been in use for more than 30 years will increase rapidly to 13.9% in 2019 and 34.5% in 2929, and end up with a social problem. In addition, with the revision of "Common Application of Seismic Design Criteria" by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security in 2017, it is mandatory to re-evaluate all existing road facilities and if necessary seismic reinforcement should be done to minimize the magnitude of earthquake damage and perform normal road functions. The seismic performance management-decision support technology currently used in seismic performance management practice in Korea only determines the earthquake-resistance reinforcement priority based on the qualitative index value for the seismic performance of individual facilities. However with this practice, normal traffic functions cannot be guaranteed. A new seismic performance management decision support technology that can provide various judgment data required for decision making is needed to overcome these shortcomings and better perform seismic performance management from a road network perspective.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.90-96
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• 2016

This study proposes a dynamic reliability analysis of control system as a method of quantitative evaluation of its performance in probabilistic terms. In this dynamic reliability analysis, the failure event is defined as an event that the dynamic response of the structural system exceeds a displacement limit, whereas the conventional reliability analysis method has limitations that do not properly assess the actual time history response of the structure subjected to dynamic loads, such as earthquakes and high winds, by taking the static response into account in the failure event. In this first paper, we discuss the control effect of the viscous damper on the seismic performance of the member-level failure where the failure event of the structural member consists of the union set of time-sequential member failures during the earthquake excitations and the failure probability of the earthquake-excited structural member is computed using system reliability approach to consider the statistical dependence of member failures between the subsequent time points. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed approach can present a reliable assessment of the control performance of the viscous damper system in comparison with MCS method. The most important advantage of the proposed approach can provide us more accurate estimate of failure probability of the structural control system by using the actual time-history responses obtained by dynamic response analysis.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.724-731
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• 2016

As the structural damage caused by earthquakes has been gradually increasing, estimating the seismic fragility of structures has become essential for earthquake preparation. Seismic fragility curves are widely used as a probabilistic indicator of structural safety against earthquakes, and many researchers have made efforts to develop them in a more accurate and effective manner. However, most of the previous research studies used simplified 2D analytical models when deriving fragility curves, mainly to reduce the numerical simulation time; however, in many cases 2D models are inadequate to accurately evaluate the seismic behavior of a structure and its seismic vulnerability. Thus, this study provides a way to derive more accurate, but still effective, seismic fragility curves by using 3D analytical models. In this method, the reliability analysis software, FERUM, is integrated with the structural analysis software, ZEUS-NL, enabling the automatic exchange of data between these two software packages, and the first order reliability method (FORM), which is not a sampling-based method, is utilized to calculate the structural failure probabilities. These tools make it possible to conduct structural reliability analyses effectively even with 3D models. By using the proposed method, this study conducted a seismic vulnerability assessment of RC frame structures with their 3D analytical models.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.169-184
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• 2022

The importance of seismicity in developing countries and the strengthening of buildings is a topic of major importance. Therefore, the study of several solutions with the development of new technologies is of great importance to investigate the damage on retrofitted structures by using probabilistic methods. The Federal Emergency Management Agency considers three types of performance levels by considering different scenarios, intensity and duration. The selection and scaling of ground motions mainly depends on the aim of the study. Intensity-based assessments are the most common and compute the response of buildings for a specified seismic intensity. Assessments based on scenarios estimate the response of buildings to different earthquake scenarios. A risk-based assessment is considered as one of the most effective. This research represents a practical method for developing countries where exists many active faults, tall buildings and lack of good implementable approaches. Therefore, to achieve the main goal, two high-rise steel buildings have been modeled and assessed. The contribution of buckling-restrained braces in the elastic design of both buildings is firstly verified. In the nonlinear static range, both buildings presented repairable damage at the central top part and some life safety hinges at the bottom. The nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis was applied by 15 representative/scaled accelerograms to obtain levels of performance and fragility curves. The results shown that by using probabilistic methods, it is possible to estimate the probability of collapse of retrofitted buildings by buckling-restrained braces and tuned mass dampers, which are practical retrofitting options to protect existing structures against earthquakes.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.303-316
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• 2023

Rapid post-earthquake damage estimation of subway stations is particularly necessary to improve short-term crisis management and safety measures of urban subway systems after a destructive earthquake. The conventional Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering (PBEE) framework with constant earthquake occurrence rate is invalid to estimate the aftershock risk because of the time-varying rate of aftershocks and the uncertainty of mainshock-damaged state before the occurrence of aftershocks. This study presents a time-varying probabilistic seismic risk assessment framework for underground structures considering mainshock and aftershock hazards. A discrete non-omogeneous Markov process is adopted to quantify the time-varying nature of aftershock hazard and the uncertainties of structural damage states following mainshock. The time-varying seismic risk of a typical rectangular frame subway station is assessed under mainshock-only (MS) hazard and mainshock-aftershock (MSAS) hazard. The results show that the probabilities of exceeding same limit states over the service life under MSAS hazard are larger than the values under MS hazard. For the same probability of exceedance, the higher response demands are found when aftershocks are considered. As the severity of damage state for the station structure increases, the difference of the probability of exceedance increases when aftershocks are considered. PSDR=1.0% is used as the collapse prevention performance criteria for the subway station is reasonable for both the MS hazard and MSAS hazard. However, if the effect of aftershock hazard is neglected, it can significantly underestimate the response demands and the uncertainties of potential damage states for the subway station over the service life.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.747-754
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• 2021

Purpose: Seismic safety evaluation of a curved bridge must be performed since the curved bridges exhibit the complex behavior rather than the straight bridges, due to geometrical characteristics. In order to conduct the probabilistic seismic assessment of the curved bridge, Seismic fragility evaluation was performed using the uncertainty of the steel material properties of a curved bridge girde, in this study. Method: The finite element (FE) model using ABAQUS platform of the curved bridge girder was constructed, and the statistical parameters of steel materials presented in previous studies were used. 100 steel material models were sampled using the Latin Hypercube Sampling method. As an input ground motion in this study, seismic fragility evaluation was performed by the normalized scale of the Gyeongju earthquake to 0.2g, 0.5g, 0.8g, 1.2g, and 1.5g. Result: As a result of the seismic fragility evaluation of the curved girder, it was found that there was no failure up to 0.03g corresponding to the limit state of allowable stress design, but the failure was started from 0.11g associated with using limit state design. Conclusion: In this study, seismic fragility evaluation was performed considering steel materials uncertainties. Further it must be considered the seismic fragility of the curved bridge using both the uncertainties of input motions and material properties.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.80 no.6
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• pp.645-655
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• 2021

Performance-based reliability analysis is a practical approach to investigate the seismic performance and stochastic nonlinear response of structures considering a random process. This is significant due to the uncertainties involved in every aspect of the analysis. Therefore, the present study aims to evaluate the performance-based reliability within a stochastic finite element (FE) framework for reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls that are considered as one of the most essential elements of structures. To accomplish this purpose, deterministic FE analyses are conducted for both squat and slender shear walls to validate numerical models through experimental results. The presented numerical analysis is performed by using the ABAQUS FE program. Afterwards, a random-effects investigation is carried out to consider the influence of different random variables on the lateral load-top displacement behavior of RC members. Using these results and through utilizing the Monte-Carlo simulation method, stochastic nonlinear analyses are also performed to generate random FE models based on input parameters and their probabilistic distributions. In order to evaluate the reliability of RC walls, failure probabilities and corresponding reliability indices are calculated at life safety and collapse prevention levels of performance as suggested by FEMA 356. Moreover, based on reliability indices, capacity reduction factors are determined subjected to shear for all specimens that are designed according to the ACI 318 Building Code. Obtained results show that the lateral load and the compressive strength of concrete have the highest effects on load-displacement responses compared to those of other random variables. It is also found that the probability of shear failure for the squat wall is slightly lower than that for slender walls. This implies that 𝛽 values are higher in a non-ductile mode of failure. Besides, the reliability of both squat and slender shear walls does not change significantly in the case of varying capacity reduction factors.