• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.321-335
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• 2020

The aim of the present contribution is to consider and underline the essential interactions among the historical knowledge, the seismic vulnerability assessment, the investigation experimental tools, the preservation of the architectural quality and the strengthening design in regard to architectural heritage conservation. These topics are argued in relation to Palazzo Murena in Perugia, designed in the eighteenth century by the famous Architect Luigi Vanvitelli, and currently headquarters of the city's University. Based on the surveys and the visual inspections, a preliminary a priori global analysis has been performed by means of the FME method. The obtained results permitted to plan an experimental tests campaign inclusive of structural health monitoring. The new achieved "knowledge" of the building allowed to refine the seismic safety assessment. In particular it was highlighted that the "mezzanine floor" can be a vulnerable element of the building with the collapse of its masonry walls. Preserving the architectural characteristics, a local reinforcement intervention is proposed for the above-mentioned level; this consists of the application of plaster with FRCM, assuring an adequate strength, without burden the masonry structure with additional weight, and therefore a decreasing of the seismic vulnerability. The necessity to consider, in this ongoing research, other local mechanisms is highlighted in the unfolding of the last part of work.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.11-26
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• 2014

The analyses carried out within the Seismic Probabilistic Risk Assessments (SPRAs) of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) are affected by significant aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. These uncertainties have to be represented and quantified coherently with the data, information and knowledge available, to provide reasonable assurance that related decisions can be taken robustly and with confidence. The amount of data, information and knowledge available for seismic risk assessment is typically limited, so that the analysis must strongly rely on expert judgments. In this paper, a Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST) framework for handling uncertainties in NPP SPRAs is proposed and applied to an example case study. The main contributions of this paper are two: (i) applying the complete DST framework to SPRA models, showing how to build the Dempster-Shafer structures of the uncertainty parameters based on industry generic data, and (ii) embedding Bayesian updating based on plant specific data into the framework. The results of the application to a case study show that the approach is feasible and effective in (i) describing and jointly propagating aleatory and epistemic uncertainties in SPRA models and (ii) providing 'conservative' bounds on the safety quantities of interest (i.e. Core Damage Frequency, CDF) that reflect the (limited) state of knowledge of the experts about the system of interest.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.5
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• pp.491-505
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• 2024

This study evaluates the seismic performance of a premodern six story reinforced concrete building typology designed during the communism period of Albania and build throughout the country. During the November 26, 2019 Earthquake in Albania, the most affected reinforced concrete buildings were among the old templates, lacking shear walls and inadequate reinforcement details which suffer from concrete aging. The mathematical model of the selected building is done in the environments of ZeusNL software, developed especially for earthquake engineering applications. The capacity curve of the structure is gained using the conventional static nonlinear analysis. On the other hand, the demand estimation is utilized using one of the recent methods known as Incremental Dynamic Analysis with a set of 18 ground motion records. The limit states in both curves are defined based on the modern guidelines. For the pushover, immediate occupancy (IO), life safety (LS) and collapse prevention (CP) are plotted in the same graph with capacity curve. Furthermore, on each IDA derived, the IO, CP and global instability (GI) are determined. Moreover, the IDA fractiles are generated as suggested by the literature, 16%, 50% (median) and 84%. In addition, the comparative assessment of the IDA median with capacity curve shows good correlation points. Lastly, this study shows the approach of determination of LS in IDA fractiles for further vulnerability assessment based on the local seismic hazard map with 95 and 475 return period.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.10
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• pp.2238-2249
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• 2020

In a seismic PSA, dependency among seismic failures of components has not been explicitly modeled in the fault tree or event tree. This dependency is separately identified and assigned with numbers that range from zero to unity that reflect the level of the mutual correlation among seismic failures. Because of complexity and difficulty in calculating combination probabilities of correlated seismic failures in complex seismic event tree and fault tree, there has been a great need of development to explicitly model seismic correlation in terms of seismic common cause failures (CCFs). If seismic correlations are converted into seismic CCFs, it is possible to calculate an accurate value of a top event probability or frequency of a complex seismic fault tree by using the same procedure as for internal, fire, and flooding PSA. This study first proposes a methodology to explicitly model seismic dependency by converting correlated seismic failures into seismic CCFs. As a result, this methodology will allow systems analysts to quantify seismic risk as what they have done with the CCF method in internal, fire, and flooding PSA.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.91-99
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• 2010

In this study, the advanced numerical algorithm is developed which can performed the static and dynamic stochastic finite element analysis by considering the effect of uncertainties included in the member stiffness of steel cable-stayed bridges and seismic load. After conducting the linear and nonlinear initial shape analysis, the advanced numerical algorithm is the assessment tool which can performed structural the response analysis considering the static linearity and non-linearity of before or after induced intial tensile force, and examined the reliability assessment more efficiently. The verification of the developed numerical algorithm is evaluated by analyzing the regression analysis and coefficient of correlation using the direct monte carlo simulation. Also, the dynamic response characteristic and coefficient of variation of the steel cable-stayed bridge is calculated by considering the uncertainty of random variables using the developed numerical algorithm. In addition, the quantitative structural safety of the steel cable-stayed bridges is evaluated by conducting the reliability assessment based upon the dynamic stochastic finite element analysis result.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.181-190
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• 2022

In assessing the seismic safety of nuclear power plants, it is essential to analyze the structures using the observed ground motion. In particular, spatial variation in which the characteristics of the ground motion record differ may occur if the location is different within the site and even if the same earthquake is experienced. This study analyzed the spatial variation characteristics of the ground motion observed at the structure and site using the earthquake records measured at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant. Even if they were located on the same floor within the same unit, there was a difference in response depending on the location. In addition, amplification was observed in Unit 5 compared to other units, which was due to the rock layer having a slower shear wave velocity than the surrounding bedrock. Significant differences were also found in the records of the structure's foundation and the free-field surface. Based on these results, the necessity of considering spatial variation in the observed records was suggested.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.199-203
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• 1999

A framework for assessing seismic safety is suggested in this paper. The concepts of requirement and achievement are used in this framework. The quantified correlation between requirement and achievement derived from two competing variables results in the unconditional frequency of exceeding a damage level. This framework can be applied to any other external safety assessment of nuclear power plants.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.339-353
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• 2023

The primary objective of the current study is to optimize and evaluate the seismic performance of steel momentresisting frame (MRF) structures considering soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects. The structural optimization is implemented in the context of performance-based design in accordance with FEMA-350 at different confidence levels from 50% to 90% by taking into account fixed- and flexible-base conditions using an efficient metaheuristic algorithm. Nonlinear response-history analysis (NRHA) is conducted to evaluate the seismic response of structures, and the beam-on-nonlinear Winkler foundation (BNWF) model is used to simulate the soil-foundation interaction under the MRFs. The seismic performance of optimally designed fixed- and flexible-base steel MRFs are compared in terms of overall damage index, seismic collapse safety, and interstory drift ratios at different performance levels. Two illustrative examples of 6- and 12-story steel MRFs are presented. The results show that the consideration of SSI in the optimization process of 6- and 12-story steel MRFs results in an increase of 1.0 to 9.0 % and 0.5 to 5.0 % in structural weight and a slight decrease in structural seismic safety at different confidence levels.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.1097-1104
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• 1994

The external loads applied to a real structure may cause a severe damage and may eventually lead to total failure. It is thus the requirement that the structure must be designed to fulfil its safe function under any anticipated loads and must have the desired level of safety. The purpose of the present study is to propose a method of damage accumulation under seismic loadings to utilize it in the safety assessment of a reinforced concrete structure. To this end, the nonlinear hysteretic behavior of reinforced concrete structures is first modeled and the equivalent linearization technique is employed to solve numerically the probabilistic characteristics of response under random seismic loadings.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.699-706
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• 2014

The probabilistic seismic performance of a standard Korean nuclear power plant (NPP) with an idealized isolation is investigated in the present work. A probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) of the Wolsong site on the Korean peninsula is performed by considering peak ground acceleration (PGA) as an earthquake intensity measure. A procedure is reported on the categorization and selection of two sets of ground motions of the Tohoku earthquake, i.e. long-period and common as Set A and Set B respectively, for the nonlinear time history response analysis of the base-isolated NPP. Limit state values as multiples of the displacement responses of the NPP base isolation are considered for the fragility estimation. The seismic risk of the NPP is further assessed by incorporation of the rate of frequency exceedance and conditional failure probability curves. Furthermore, this framework attempts to show the unacceptable performance of the isolated NPP in terms of the probabilistic distribution and annual probability of limit states. The comparative results for long and common ground motions are discussed to contribute to the future safety of nuclear facilities against drastic events like Tohoku.