• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.144-153
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• 1998

Base isolation is an innovative design strategy that provides a practical alternative for the seismic design of structures. Base isolators, mainly employed to isolate large structures subjected to earthquake ground excitations and to rehabilitate structures damaged by past earthquakes, deflect and absorb the seismic energy horizontally transmitted to the structures. This study demonstrates that the base isolation system may offer effective performance for bridges during severe seismic events through shaking table tests. Two base isolation system using laminated rubber bearings with and without hydraulic dampers are tested. The test results strongly show that the laminated rubber bearings cause the natural period of the bridge structure increased considerably, which results in the deck acceleration and the shear forces on the piers reduced significantly. The results also demonstrate that the hydraulic dampers enhance the system's capacity in dissipating energy to reduce the relative displacement between the bridge deck and the pier.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.39-53
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• 2012

Due to strong ground motion of earthquake, the material in the landslide can travel a significant distance from the source. A new landslide model called Multiplex Acceleration Model (MAM) has been proposed to interpret the mechanism of long run-out movement of this type of landslide, considering earthquake behaviors on slope and landslide materials. In previous study, this model was verified by a shaking table test. However, there is a scale limitation of shaking table test to investigate MAM in detail. Thus, numerical simulation was carried out in this study to validate MAM under full scale. A huge rock ejected and A truck threw upwards by seismic force during Wenchuan Earthquake (Ms. 8.0) was discussed based on the simulation results. The results indicate that collisions in P-phase of earthquake and trampoline effect are important behaviors to interpret the mechanism of long run-out and high velocity. The results show that MAM is acceptable and applicable.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.119-126
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• 2009

LCVA has an advantage that its natural frequency can be easily controlled by changing the area ratio of the vertical column and horizontal part. The previous studies investigated the dynamic characteristics of the LCVA under harmonic load. This study experimentally obtained the first and second mode natural frequencies of the LCVA from shaking table tests using white noise and compared the values with the ones by previous study. Test results show that the measured first mode natural frequency of the LCVA has a different value compared with calculated one. The effective length($L_e$) was revised using by power equation. In the case01 to 19, the standard deviation($S_r$) is 4.7292 and the coefficient of correlation(r) is 0.9856. In the case21 to 61, the standard deviation($S_r$) is 14.2143 and the coefficient of correlation(r) is 0.9935. The second mode frequency increases with the increasing area ratio, which is due to the sloshing motion effect resulting from the large area of the vertical column.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.637-647
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• 2019

In this study, we analyzed seismic behavior of reinforced earth retaining wall through the model test in order to characterize the behavior of reinforced earth retaining wall during earthquake. A scale model test was performed based on similitude ratio in accordance with law of similitude due to time and financial constraints on real scale modeling experiments. Seismic resistance characteristics of each seismic waves were analyzed by assessing the variations measured through excitation of the excited acceleration of 0.05g, 0.1g, 0.15g, and 0.2g. The results of this study, it would be important to obtain reasonable and abundant data on ground properties and seismic design in preparation for earthquakes when assessing the safety of block type reinforced earth retaining wall confined to model experiment. Acquisition of those data and systematic analytical techniques are considered likely to have a significant effect on the decrease of structure damage caused by earthquakes in Korea which has recently witnessed frequent occurrence of earthquakes.

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

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.5
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• pp.599-612
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• 2020

A combination of a gravity wall and an anchor beam is widely used to support the high soil deposit on rock mass. In this study, two groups of shaking table test were performed to investigate the responses of such combined retaining structure, where the rock masses were shaped with a flat surface and a curved surface, respectively. Meanwhile, the dynamic numerical analysis was carried out for a comparison or an extensive study. The results were studied and compared between the combined retaining structures with different shaped rock masses with regard to the acceleration response, the earth pressure response, and the axial anchor force. The acceleration response is not significantly influenced by the surface shape of rock mass. The earth pressure response on the combined retaining structure with a flat rock surface is more intensive than the one with a curved rock surface. The anchor force is significantly enlarged by seismic excitation with a main earthquake-induced increment at the first intensive pulse of Wenchuan motion. The value of anchor force in the combined retaining structure with a flat rock surface is generally larger than the one with a curved rock surface. Generally, the combined retaining structure with a curved rock surface presents a better seismic performance.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.449-470
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• 2016

Energy harvesting is an emerging technique that extracts energy from surrounding environments to power low-power devices. For example, it can potentially provide sustainable energy for wireless sensing networks (WSNs) or structural control systems in civil engineering applications. This paper presents a comprehensive study on harvesting energy from earthquake-induced structural vibrations, which is typically of low frequency, to power WSNs. A macroscale pendulum-type electromagnetic harvester (MPEH) is proposed, analyzed and experimentally validated. The presented predictive model describes output power dependence with mass, efficiency and the power spectral density of base acceleration, providing a simple tool to estimate harvested energy. A series of shaking table tests in which a single-storey steel frame model equipped with a MPEH has been carried out under earthquake excitations. Three types of energy harvesting circuits, namely, a resistor circuit, a standard energy harvesting circuit (SEHC) and a voltage-mode controlled buck-boost converter were used for comparative study. In ideal cases, i.e., resistor circuit cases, the maximum electric energy of 8.72 J was harvested with the efficiency of 35.3%. In practical cases, the maximum electric energy of 4.67 J was extracted via the buck-boost converter under the same conditions. The predictive model on output power and harvested energy has been validated by the test data.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.625-642
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• 2016

The rapid technology developments in smartphones have created a significant opportunity for their use in structural live load measurements. This paper presents extensive experiments conducted in two stages to investigate this opportunity. Shaking table tests were carried out in the first stage using selected popular smartphones to measure the sinusoidal waves of various frequencies, the sinusoidal sweeping, and earthquake waves. Comparison between smartphone measurements and real inputs showed that the smartphones used in this study gave reliable measurements for harmonic waves in both time and frequency domains. For complex waves, smartphone measurements should be used with caution. In the second stage, three-dimensional motion capture technology was employed to explore the capacity of smartphones for measuring the movement of individuals in walking, bouncing and jumping activities. In these tests, reflective markers were attached to the test subject. The markers' trajectories were recorded by the motion capture system and were taken as references. The smartphone measurements agreed well with the references when the phone was properly fixed. Encouraged by these experimental validation results, smartphones were attached to moving participants of this study. The phones measured the acceleration near the center-of-mass of his or her body. The human-induced loads were then reconstructed by the acceleration measurements in conjunction with a biomechanical model. Satisfactory agreement between the reconstructed forces and that measured by a force plate was observed in several instances, clearly demonstrating the capability of smartphones to accurately assist in obtaining human-induced load measurements.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.513-522
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• 2019

A long-span transmission tower-line system is indispensable for long-distance electricity transmission across a large river or valley; hence, the failure of this system, especially the collapse of the supporting towers, has serious impacts on power grids. To ensure the safety and reliability of transmission systems, this study experimentally and numerically investigates the collapse failure of a 220 kV long-span transmission tower-line system subjected to severe earthquakes. A 1:20 scale model of a transmission tower-line system is constructed in this research, and shaking table tests are carried out. Furthermore, numerical studies are conducted in ABAQUS by using the Tian-Ma-Qu material model, the results of which are compared with the experimental findings. Good agreement is found between the experimental and numerical results, showing that the numerical simulation based on the Tian-Ma-Qu material model is able to predict the weak points and collapse process of the long-span transmission tower-line system. The failure of diagonal members at weak points constitutes the collapse-inducing factor, and the ultimate capacity and weakest segment vary with different seismic wave excitations. This research can further enrich the database for the seismic performance of long-span transmission tower-line systems.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.39-48
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• 2022

Many piping systems installed in the power plant are directly related to the safety and operation of the plant. Various dampers have been applied to the piping system to reduce the damage caused by earthquakes. In order to reduce the vibration of the piping system, this study developed a steel coil damper (SCD) with a straightforward structure but excellent damping performance. SCD reduces the vibration of the objective structure by hysteretic damping. The new SCD damper can be applied to high-temperature environments since it consists of steel members. The paper introduces a design method for the elastoplastic coil spring, which is the critical element of SCD. The practical applicability of the design procedure was validated by comparing the nonlinear force-displacement curves calculated by design equations with the results obtained from nonlinear finite element analysis and repeated loading test. It was found that the designed SCD's have a damping ratio higher than 25%. In addition, this study performed a set of seismic tests using a shaking table with an existing piping system to verify the vibration control capacity on the piping system by SCD. Test results prove that the SCD can effectively control the displacement vibration of the piping system up to 80%.