• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.441-457
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• 2018

Characteristic parameter values of seismic isolators deviate from their nominal design values due to uncertainties and/or errors in their material properties and element dimensions, etc. Deviations may increase over service life due to environmental effects and service conditions. For accurate evaluation of the seismic safety level, all such effects, which would result in deviations in the structural response, need to be taken into account. In this study, the sensitivity of the probability of failure of the structures equipped with nonlinear base isolation systems to the uncertainties in various isolation system characteristic parameters is investigated in terms of various isolation system and superstructure response parameters in the context of a realistic three-dimensional base-isolated building model via Monte Carlo Simulations. The inherent record-to-record variability nature of the earthquake ground motions is also taken into account by carrying out analyses for a large number of ground motion records which are classified as those with and without forward-directivity effects. Two levels of nominal isolation periods each with three different levels of uncertainty are considered. Comparative plots of cumulative distribution functions and related statistical evaluation presented here portray the potential extent of the deviation of the structural response parameters resulting from the uncertainties and the uncertainty levels considered, which is expected to be useful for practicing engineers in evaluating isolator test results for their projects.

• Atmosphere
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.149-161
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• 2012

Going by the research results of the past, of all the uncertainties resulting from the research on climate change, the uncertainty caused by the climate change scenario has the highest degree of uncertainty. Therefore, depending upon what kind of climate change scenario one adopts, the projection of the water resources in the future will differ significantly. As a matter of principle, it is highly recommended to utilize all the GCM scenarios offered by the IPCC. However, this could be considered to be an impractical alternative if a decision has to be made at an action officer's level. Hence, as an alternative, it is deemed necessary to select several scenarios so as to express the possible number of cases to the maximum extent possible. The objective standards in selecting the climate change scenarios have not been properly established and the scenarios have been selected, either at random or subject to the researcher's discretion. In this research, a new scenario selection process, in which it is possible to have the effect of having utilized all the possible scenarios, with using only a few principal scenarios and maintaining some of the uncertainties, has been suggested. In this research, the use of cluster analysis and the selection of a representative scenario in each cluster have efficiently reduced the number of climate change scenarios. In the cluster analysis method, the K-means clustering method, which takes advantage of the statistical features of scenarios has been employed; in the selection of a representative scenario in each cluster, the selection method was analyzed and reviewed and the PDF method was used to select the best scenarios with the closest simulation accuracy and the principal scenarios that is suggested by this research. In the selection of the best scenarios, it has been shown that the GCM scenario which demonstrated high level of simulation accuracy in the past need not necessarily demonstrate the similarly high level of simulation accuracy in the future and various GCM scenarios were selected for the principal scenarios. Secondly, the "Maximum entropy" which can quantify the uncertainties of the climate change scenario has been used to both quantify and compare the uncertainties associated with all the scenarios, best scenarios and the principal scenarios. Comparison has shown that the principal scenarios do maintain and are able to better explain the uncertainties of all the scenarios than the best scenarios. Therefore, through the scenario selection process, it has been proven that the principal scenarios have the effect of having utilized all the scenarios and retaining the uncertainties associated with the climate change to the maximum extent possible, while reducing the number of scenarios at the same time. Lastly, the climate change scenario most suitable for the climate on the Korean peninsula has been suggested. Through the scenario selection process, of all the scenarios found in the 4th IPCC report, principal climate change scenarios, which are suitable for the Korean peninsula and maintain most of the uncertainties, have been suggested. Therefore, it is assessed that the use of the scenario most suitable for the future projection of water resources on the Korean peninsula will be able to provide the projection of the water resources management that maintains more than 70~80% level of uncertainties of all the scenarios.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.481-490
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• 2006

The actual performance of a building during an earthquake depends on many factors. The prediction of the seismic performance of a new or existing structure is complex, due not only to the large number of factors that need to be considered and the complexity of the seismic response, but also due to the large inherent uncertainties and randomness associated with making these predictions. A central issue of this research is the proper treatment and incorporation of these uncertainties and randomness in the evaluation of structural capacity and response has been adopted in the seismic performance evaluation of steel tall buildings to account for the uncertainties and randomness in seismic demand and capacities in a consistent manner. The basic framework for reliability-based seismic performance evaluation and the key factors for statistical studies were summarized. A total of 36 target structures that represent typical tall steel buildings based on national building code (KBC-2005) were designed for the statistical studies of demand factor s and capacity factors. The incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) approach was examined through the simple steel moment frame building in determination of global drift capacity.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.619-632
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• 2014

The Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty (BEPU) method has been widely used to evaluate the uncertainty of a best-estimate thermal hydraulic system code against a figure of merit. This uncertainty is typically evaluated based on the physical model's uncertainties determined by expert judgment. This paper introduces the application of data assimilation methodology to determine the uncertainty bands of the physical models, e.g., the mean value and standard deviation of the parameters, based upon the statistical approach rather than expert judgment. Data assimilation suggests a mathematical methodology for the best estimate bias and the uncertainties of the physical models which optimize the system response following the calibration of model parameters and responses. The mathematical approaches include deterministic and probabilistic methods of data assimilation to solve both linear and nonlinear problems with the a posteriori distribution of parameters derived based on Bayes' theorem. The inverse problem was solved analytically to obtain the mean value and standard deviation of the parameters assuming Gaussian distributions for the parameters and responses, and a sampling method was utilized to illustrate the non-Gaussian a posteriori distributions of parameters. SPACE is used to demonstrate the data assimilation method by determining the bias and the uncertainty bands of the physical models employing Bennett's heated tube test data and Becker's post critical heat flux experimental data. Based on the results of the data assimilation process, the major sources of the modeling uncertainties were identified for further model development.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.651-676
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• 2022

Most of the experimental, theoretical, and numerical studies on the stability of functionally graded composites are deterministic, while there are full of complex interactions of variables with an inherently probabilistic nature, this paper presents a non-intrusive framework to investigate the stochastic nonlinear buckling behaviors of porous functionally graded cylindrical shells exposed to inevitable source-uncertainties. Euler-Lagrange equations are theoretically derived based on the three variable refined shear deformation theory. Closed-form solutions for the shell buckling loads are achieved by solving the deterministic eigenvalue problems. The analytical results are verified with numerical results obtained from finite element analyses that are conducted in the commercial software ABAQUS. The non-intrusive framework is completed by integrating the Monte Carlo simulation with the verified closed-form solutions. The convergence studies are performed to determine the effective pseudorandom draws of the simulation. The accuracy and efficiency of the framework are verified with statistical results that are obtained from the first and second-order perturbation techniques. Eleven cases of individual and compound uncertainties are investigated. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to figure out the five cases that have profound perturbative effects on the shell buckling loads. Complete probability distributions of the first three critical buckling loads are completely presented for each profound uncertainty case. The effects of the shell thickness, volume fraction index, and stochasticity degree on the shell buckling load under compound uncertainties are studied. There is a high probability that the shell has non-unique buckling modes in stochastic environments, which should be known for reliable analysis and design of engineering structures.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.3-6
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• 2006

Methods for risk engineering is a bundle of engineering tools including fundamental concepts and approaches of soft computing with application to real issues of risk management. In this talk fundamental concepts and soft computing approaches of risk engineering will be introduced. As the term of risk implies both advantageous and hazardous uncertainty in its origins, a fundamental theory to describe uncertainties is introduced that includes traditional probability and statistical models, fuzzy systems, as well as less popular modal logic. In particular, modal logic capabilities to express various kinds of uncertainties are emphasized and relations with rough sets and evidence theory are described. Another topic is data mining related to problems in risk management. Some risk mining techniques including fuzzy clustering are introduced and a recently developed algorithm is overviewed. A numerical example is shown.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.2257-2264
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• 1994

A method to evaluate the position performance for a stochastically defined planar robot manipulator is presented. Performance is defined as the operational reliability based upon the positional errors of the manipulator tip. An analytical method is developed and applied to a two-link robot manipulator through forward kinematics. This study includes uncertainties in the link length, pin center location and radial clearance. By virtue of the effective link length model, only the nominal manipulator model and statistical information on the uncertainties are required. The results from the analytical method is compared to those from the Monte Carlo simulation.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.836-840
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• 2006

Design optimization of layered plates bonding process is conducted to achieve high product quality by considering uncertainties in a manufacturing process. During the cooling process of the sequential sub-processes, different thermal expansion coefficients lead to residual stress and displacement. thus resulting in defects on the surface of the adherent. So robust process optimization is performed to minimize the residual stress mean and variation of the assembly while constraining the distortion as well as the instantaneous maximum stress to the allowable limits. In robust process optimization, the dimension reduction (DR) method is employed to quantify both reliability and quality of the layered plate bonding. Using this method. the average and standard deviation is estimated. Response surface is constructed using the statistical data obtained by the DRM for robust objectives and constraints. from which the optimum solution is obtained.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.24 no.E2
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• pp.92-101
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• 2008

The objective of this study is to evaluate and improve the capability of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in simulating fog and visibility in local airports over Korea. The WRF model system is statistically evaluated for the 48-fog cases over Korea from 2003 to 2006. Based on the 4-yr evaluations, attempts are made to improve the simulation skill of fog and visibility over Korea by revising the statistical coefficients in the visibility algorithms of the WRF model. A comparison of four existing visibility algorithms in the WRF model shows that uncertainties in the visibility algorithms include additional degree of freedom in accuracy of numerical fog forecasts over Korea. A revised statistical algorithm using a linear-regression between the observed visibility and simulated hydrometeors and humidity near the surface exhibits overall improvement in the visibility forecasts.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.1351-1358
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• 2011

To approximate the threshold of the fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) system, validation of the measurements is mandatory. Naturally, the system shows uncertainties due to measuring sensors - mostly thermocouples or RTDs - and due to repeatability. The uncertainty of a thermocouple comes from natural variation or a drift of the thermocouple measurement. Considering the natural variation behaves like zero-mean white noise, its natural variation can be characterized closely by the steady-state standard deviation. However, residuals between measurements and no-fault references in FDD systems show a statistical distribution with various uncertainties. In this paper, steady-state variations of measurement residuals were investigated by utilizing built-in temperature sensors in a heat pump for the model development and the final application.