• 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.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.233-247
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• 2006

Most codes of practice state that for large in-plane structures it is necessary to account for the spatial variability of earthquake ground motion. There are essentially three effects that contribute for this variation: (i) wave passage effect, due to finite propagation velocity; (ii) incoherence effect, due to differences in superposition of waves; and (iii) the local site amplification due to spatial variation in geological conditions. This paper discusses the procedures to be undertaken in the time domain analysis of a cable-stayed bridge under spatial variability of earthquake ground motion. The artificial synthesis of correlated displacements series that simulate the earthquake load is discussed first. Next, it is described the 3D model of the International Guadiana Bridge used for running tests with seismic analysis. A comparison of the effects produced by seismic waves with different apparent propagation velocities and different geological conditions is undertaken. The results in this study show that the differences between the analysis with and without spatial variability of earthquake ground motion can be important for some displacements and internal forces, especially those influenced by symmetric modes.

• 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.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.5
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• pp.633-644
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• 2018

This paper presents the results of an assessment of the seismic fragility of a long, curved multi-frame bridge under multi-support earthquake excitations. To achieve this aim, the numerical model of columns retrofitted with elliptical steel jackets was developed and validated using existing experimental results. A detailed nonlinear numerical model of the bridge that can capture the inelastic response of various components was then created. Using nonlinear time-history analyses for a set of stochastically generated spatially variable ground motions, component demands were derived and then convolved with new capacity-based limit state models to obtain seismic fragility curves. The comparison of failure probabilities obtained from uniform and multi-support excitation analyses revealed that the consideration of spatial variability significantly reduced the median value of fragility curves for most components except for the abutments. This observation indicates that the assumption of uniform motions may considerably underestimate seismic demands. Moreover, the spatial correlation of ground motions resulted in reduced dispersion of demand models that consequently decreased the dispersion of fragility curves for all components. Therefore, the spatial variability of ground motions needs to be considered for reliable assessment of the seismic performance of long multi-frame bridge structures.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.223-232
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• 2021

The spatial variation characteristics of seismic motions at the nuclear power plant's site and structures were analyzed using earthquake records obtained at the Fukushima nuclear power plant during the Great East Japan Earthquake. The ground responses amplified as they approached the soil surface from the lower rock surface, and the amplification occurred intensively at about 50 m near the ground. Due to the soil layer's nonlinear characteristics caused by the strong seismic motion, the ground's natural frequency derived from the response spectrum ratio appeared to be smaller than that calculated from the shear wave velocity profile. The spatial variation of the peak ground acceleration at the ground surface of the power plant site showed a significant difference of about 0.6 g at the maximum. As a result of comparing the response spectrums at the basement of the structure with the design response spectrum, there was a large variability by each power plant unit. The difference was more significant in the Fukushima Daiichi site record, which showed larger peak ground acceleration at the surface. The earthquake motions input to the basement of the structure amplified according to the structure's height. The natural frequency obtained from the recorded results was lower than that indicated in the previous research. Also, the floor response spectrum change according to the location at the same height was investigated. The vertical response on the foundation surface showed a significant difference in spectral acceleration depending on the location. The amplified response in the structure showed a different variability depending on the type of structure and the target frequency.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.25-35
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• 2017

Liquefaction is one of the major seismic damage, and several methods have been developed to evaluate the possibility of liquefaction. Recently, a probabilistic approach has been studied to overcome the drawback of deterministic approaches, and to consider the uncertainties of soil properties. In this study, the spatial variability of cone penetration resistance was evaluated using CPT data from three locations having different variability characteristics to perform the probabilistic analysis considering the spatial variability of soil properties. Then the random fields of cone penetration resistance considering the spatial variability of each point were generated, and a probabilistic analysis of liquefaction induced settlement was carried out through CPT-based liquefaction evaluation method. As a result, the uncertainty of soil properties can be overestimated when the spatial variability is not considered, and significant probabilistic differences can occur up to about 30% depending on the allowable settlement.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.33-44
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• 2004

This paper is focused on the spatial variability of measured strong motion data during earthquake and its relationship with the performance of water distribution pipelines and residential buildings. Analyses of strong motion and the correlations of peak ground velocity (PGV) and pipeline and building damage were conducted with a very large geographical information system (GIS) database including the relationship of time and earthquake intensity and the measured location, and Kriging spatial statistics. Kriging was used to develop regressions of pipeline repair rate (RR) and residential building damage ratio (DR) associated with $90\%$ confidence peak ground velocity (PGV). Such regressions using Kriging provide an explicit means of characterizing the uncertainty embodied in the strong motion data compared with other spacial statistics such as inverse distance method.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.123-133
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• 2003

A practical statistical approach that can be used to model various sources of uncertainty systematically is presented in the context of reliability analysis of slope stability. New expressions for probabilistic characterization of soil properties incorporate sampling and measurement errors, as well as spatial variability and its reduced variance due to spatial averaging. The stochastic nature of seismic loading is studied by generating a large series of hazard-compatible artificial motions, and by using them in subsequent response analyses. The analyses indicate that in a seismically less active region such as the Korean Peninsular, a moderate variability in soil properties has an effect as large as the characterization of earthquake hazard on the computed risk of slope failure and excessive slope deformations.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.1001-1018
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• 2016

The purpose of this paper is to compare the structural responses obtained from the stochastic analysis of a suspension bridge subjected to uniform and partially correlated seismic ground motions, using different spatial correlation functions commonly used in the earthquake engineering. The spatial correlation function employed in this study consists of a term that characterizes the loss of coherency. To account for the spatial variability of ground motions, the widely used four loss of coherency models in the literature has been taken into account in this study. Because each of these models has its own characteristics, it is intended to determine the sensitivity of a suspension bridge due to these losses of coherency models which represent the spatial variability of ground motions. Bosporus Suspension Bridge connects Europe to Asia in Istanbul is selected as a numerical example. The bridge has steel towers that are flexible, inclined hangers and a steel box-deck of 1074 m main span, with side spans of 231 and 255 m on the European and Asian sides, respectively. For the ground motion the filtered white noise model is considered and applied in the vertical direction, the intensity parameter of this model is obtained by using the S16E component of Pacoima Dam record of 1971 San Fernando earthquake. An analytically simple model called as filtered white noise ground motion model is chosen to represent the earthquake ground motion. When compared with the uniform ground motion case, the results obtained from the spatial variability models with partial correlation outline the necessity to include the spatial variability of ground motions in the stochastic dynamic analysis of suspension bridges. It is observed that while the largest response values are obtained for the model proposed by Harichandran and Vanmarcke, the model proposed by Uscinski produces the smallest responses among the considered partially correlated ground motion models. The response values obtained from the uniform ground motion case are usually smaller than those of the responses obtained from the partially correlated ground motion cases. While the response values at the flexible parts of the bridge are totally dominated by the dynamic component, the pseudo-static component also has significant contributions for the response values at the rigid parts of the bridge. The results also show the consistency of the spatial variability models, which have different characteristics, considered in this study.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1029-1044
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• 2015

To investigate the seismic pounding response of long-span bridges with high-piers under strong ground motions, shaking table tests were performed on a 1/10-scaled bridge model consisting of three continuous spans with rigid frames and one simply-supported span. The seismic pounding responses of this bridge model under different earthquake excitations including the uniform excitation and the traveling wave excitations were experimentally studied. The influence of dampers to the seismic pounding effects at the expansion joints was analyzed through nonlinear dynamic analyses in this research. The seismic pounding effects obtained from numerical analyses of the bridge model are in favorable agreement with the experimental results. Seismic pounding effect of bridge superstructures is dependent on the structural dynamic properties of the adjacent spans and characteristics of ground motions. Moreover, supplemental damping can effectively mitigate pounding effects of the bridge superstructures, and reduce the base shear forces of the bridge piers.