• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.1481-1497
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• 2015

Vertical earthquake ground motion may magnify vertical dynamic responses of structures, and thus cause serious damage to bridges. As main support structures, piers and bearings play an important role in vertical seismic response analysis of girder bridges. In this study, the pier and bearing are simplified as a vertical series spring system without mass. Then, based on the assumption of small displacement, the equation of motion governing the simply-supported straight girder bridge under vertical ground motion is established including effects of vertical deformation of support structures. Considering boundary conditions, the differential quadrature method (DQM) is applied to discretize the above equation of motion into a MDOF (multi-degree-of-freedom) system. Then seismic responses of this MDOF system are calculated by a step-by-step integration method. Effects of support structures on vertical dynamic responses of girder bridges are studied under different vertical strong earthquake motions. Results indicate that support structures may remarkably increase or decrease vertical seismic responses of girder bridges. So it is of great importance to consider effects of support structures in structural seismic design of girder bridges in near-fault region. Finally, optimization of support structures to resist vertical strong earthquake motions is discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.411-425
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• 2011

This paper illustrates the results of a seismic vulnerability study aimed to derive the fragility curves for typical Algerian reinforced concrete bridge piers using an analytical approach. Fragility curves express the probability of exceeding a certain damage state for a given ground motion intensity (e.g., PGA). In this respect, a set of 41 worldwide accelerometer records from which, 21 Algerian strong motion records are included, have been used in a non-linear dynamic response analyses to assess the damage indices expressed in terms of the bridge displacement ductility, the ultimate ductility, the cyclic loading factor and the cumulative energy ductility. Combining the damage indices defined for 5 damage rank with the ground motion indices, the fragility curves for the bridge piers were derived assuming a lognormal distribution.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.983-997
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• 2015

This research evaluates the soil conditions for seismic stations situated in Romania using the horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR). The strong ground motion database assembled for this study consists of 179 analogue and digital strong ground motion recordings from four intermediate-depth Vrancea seismic events with $M_w{\geq}6.0$. In the first step of the analysis, the influence of the earthquake magnitude and source-to-site distance on the H/V curves is evaluated. Significant influences from both the earthquake magnitude and hypocentral distance are found especially for soil class A sites. Next, a site classification method proposed in the literature is applied for each seismic station and the soil classes are compared with those obtained from borehole data and from the topographic slope method. In addition, the success and error rates of this method are computed and compared with other studies from the literature. A more in-depth analysis of the H/V results is performed using data from seismic stations in Bucharest and a comparison of the free-field and borehole H/V curves is done for three seismic stations. The results show large differences between the free-field and the borehole curves. As a conclusion, the results from this study represent an intermediary step in the evaluation of the soil conditions for seismic stations in Romania and the need to perform more detailed soil classification analysis is highly emphasized.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.277-283
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• 2020

In order to improve the ground-motion prediction equation, which is an important factor in seismic hazard assessment, it is essential to obtain good quality seismic data for a region. The Korean Peninsula has an environment in which it is difficult to obtain strong ground motion data. However, because digital seismic observation networks have become denser since the mid-2000s and moderate earthquake events such as the Odaesan earthquake (Jan. 20, 2007, M_L 4.8), the 9.12 Gyeongju earthquake (Sep. 12, 2016, M_L 5.8), and the Pohang earthquake (Nov. 15, 2017, M_L 5.4) have occurred, some good empirical data on ground motion could have been accumulated. In this study, we tried to build a ground motion database that can be used for the development of the ground motion attenuation equation by collecting seismic data accumulated since the 2000s. The database was constructed in the form of a flat file with RotD50 peak ground acceleration, 5% damped pseudo-spectral acceleration, and meta information related to hypocenter, path, site, and data processing. The seismic data used were the velocity and accelerogram data for events over M_L 3.0 observed between 2003 and 2019 by the Korean National Seismic Network administered by the Korea Meteorological Administration. The final flat file contains 10,795 ground motion data items for 141 events. Although this study focuses mainly on organizing earthquake ground-motion waveforms and their data processing, it is thought that the study will contribute to reducing uncertainty in evaluating seismic hazard in the Korean Peninsula if detailed information about epicenters and stations is supplemented in the future.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.909-922
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• 2014

In this paper, we present an alternative seismic design strategy for cable stayed bridges with concrete pylons when subjected to strong ground motions. The comparison of conventional seismic design using supplemental dampers (strategy A) and the new strategy using nonlinear seismic design of pylon columns (strategy B) is exemplified by one typical medium span cable stayed bridge subjected to strong ground motions from 1999 Taiwan Chi-Chi earthquake and 2008 China Wenchuan earthquake. We first conducted the optimization of damper parameters according to strategy A in response to the distinct features that strong ground motions contain. And then we adopted strategy B to carry out seismic analysis by introducing the elastic-plastic elements that allowing plasticity development in the pylon columns. The numerical results show that via strategy A, the earthquake induced structural responses can be kept in the desired range provided with the proper damping parameters, however, the extra cost of unusual dampers will be inevitable. For strategy B, the pylon columns may not remain elastic and certain plasticity developed, but the seismic responses of the foundation will be greatly decreased, meanwhile, the displacement at the top of pylon seems to be not affected much by the yielding of pylon columns, which indicates the pylon nonlinear design can be an alternative design strategy when strong ground motions have to be considered for the bridge.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.451-458
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• 2008

The near-fault ground motion (NFGM) is characterized by a single long period velocity pulse of large magnitude. NFGM's have been observed in recent strong earthquakes, Izmit Turkey (1999), Kobe Japan (1995), Northridge USA (1994), etc. These strong earthquakes have caused considerable damage to infrastructures because the epicenter was close to the urban area, called as NFGM. Extensive research for the near-fault ground motion (NFGM) have been carried out in strong seismic region, but limited research have been done for NFGM in low or moderate seismic regions because of very few records. The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze the effect of near-fault ground motions on reinforced concrete (RC) bridge piers with lap-spliced longitudinal reinforcing steels. The seismic performance of four RC bridge piers under near-fault ground motions was investigated on the shake table. In addition, a RC bridge pier is subjected to pseudo-dynamic loadings. Test results showed that large residual displacements were observed in RC bridge piers under NFGM. RC specimens on the shake table failed at relatively low displacement ductility, compared with the displacement ductility of RC bridge pier subjected to pseudo-dynamic loadings.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.70-80
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• 2000

In order to reduce seismic hazard the characteristics of strong earthquakes are required. In the region where strong earthquakes do not happen frequently the stochastic simulation of strong motion is an alternative way to predict strong motions. this simulation required input parameters such as the quality factor the corner frequency the moment magnitude the stress drop and so on which can be obtained from analyses of records of small and intermediate earthquakes. Using those parameters obtained in the previous work the strong ground motions are predicted employing the stochastic method, . The results are compared to the two observed earthquakes-the Ulsan Offshore Earthquake and the Kyungju Earthquake. Although some deviations are found the predictions are similar to the observed data. Finally we computed attenuation equations for PGA PGV and ground accelerations for some frequencies using the results of predictions. These results can be used for earthquake engineering and more reliable results will come out as earthquake observations continue.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.190-195
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• 2001

In the present paper computational simulation of a concrete dam is performed to determine the effect of vertical ground motions on earthquake response of concrete dams. Cyclic and dynamic versions of the plastic-damage model proposed by Lee and Fenves are used to represent micro-crack development and crack opening/closing, which is important mechanism in nonlinear damage analysis of concrete structures subject to strong earthquake loading. The result shows that the vertical component of ground motion effects on final crack patterns and consequently, on displacement response.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.647-664
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• 2006

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of transient stochastic analysis on nonlinear response of earth and rock-fill dams to spatially varying ground motion. The dam models are analyzed by a stochastic finite element method based on the equivalent linear method which considers the nonlinear variation of soil shear moduli and damping ratio as a function of shear strain. The spatial variability of ground motion is taken into account with the incoherence, wave-passage and site response effects. Stationary as well as transient stochastic response analyses are performed for the considered dam types. A time dependent frequency response function is used throughout the study for transient stochastic responses. It is observed that stationarity is a reasonable assumption for earth and rock-fill dams to typical durations of strong shaking.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1091-1114
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• 2015

The adequacy of a number of advanced earthquake Intensity Measures (IMs) to predict the structural damage of earthquake resistant 3D R/C buildings is investigated in the present paper. To achieve this purpose three symmetric in plan and three asymmetric 5-storey R/C buildings are analyzed by nonlinear time history analysis using 74 bidirectional earthquake records. The two horizontal accelerograms of each ground motion are applied along the structural axes of the buildings and the structural damage is expressed in terms of the maximum and average interstorey drift as well as the overall structural damage index. For each individual pair of accelerograms the values of the aforementioned seismic damage measures are determined. Then, they are correlated with several strong motion scalar IMs that take into account both earthquake and structural characteristics. The research identified certain IMs which exhibit strong correlation with the seismic damage measures of the studied buildings. However, the degree of correlation between IMs and the seismic damage depends on the damage measure adopted. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the widely used spectral acceleration at the fundamental period of the structure is a relatively good IM for medium rise R/C buildings that possess small structural eccentricity.