• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.810-823
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• 2009

One of the critical factors in accurate determination of earthquake source parameters, and in prediction of seismic hazards is the detailed information related to the site amplification characteristics. The site amplification characteristics of the broad-band seismic stations in Korea were estimated as a function of frequency in the range of 0.2 to 20 Hz. A total of 1275 seismograms recorded from 43 earthquakes observed from 2003 to 2008 in the southern Korean Peninsula were used. It was found that the site amplification ratios for 28 stations estimated from the inversion of the ground motion model were approximately concordant with those obtained from the horizontal-to-vertical (H/V) spectral ratio except for some stations. The spectral site amplification characteristics obtained in this study did not show any considerable spatial distribution. It revealed to be largely correlated with the degree of weathering rather than the basement rock type. Considering the spectral site amplification ratio, 28 broad-band stations were classified into four groups and the characteristics of each group were described in the text.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.16 no.6 s.65
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• pp.486-494
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• 2006

The horizontal to vertical (H/V) ratio technique in spectral domain is a common useful technique to estimate empirical site transfer function. The technique, originally proposed by Nakamura, is proposed to analyse the surface waves in the micrortremor records. The purpose of this paper is to estimate spectral ratio using observed data at the seismic stations distributed within Southern Korean Peninsula from the Fukuoka earthquake including 11 aftershocks. The results show that most of the stations have fairly good amplification characteristics in low frequency band. However, some of the seismic stations show one (resonant frequency specific to the site) or several local peaks of amplification factors with narrow high frequency band. Even though the site amplification characteristics are important information, we should be careful to analyse the observed ground motions from the seismic stations which have several very high amplification peaks for the deconvolution of seismic source and attenuation parameters.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.27-34
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• 2009

Site amplification should be considered in order to estimate Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI), seismic source and attenuation parameters with a greater degree of reliability. The horizontal to vertical (H/V) ratio technique, originally proposed by Nakamura (1989), has been applied to analyze the surface waves in microtremor records. Recently, its application has been extended to the shear wave energy of strong motion in order to study the site transfer function. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the H/V spectral ratio using the observed data from 9 seismic stations distributed within the Southern Korean Peninsula, from the Odesan earthquake (2007/01/20). The results show that most of the stations have more stable amplification characteristics in a low frequency band than in a high frequency band. However, each seismic station showed its own characteristic resonant frequency and low and high frequency. The resonant frequency at each station should be estimated carefully, because the quality of seismic data is dependent on the resonant frequency. It can be obtained more reliable results of seismic source and attenuation parameters, if seismic ground motions which deconvolved from site transfer function is used. The site amplification data from this study can be used to generally classify the sites within the Southern Korean Peninsula.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.183-190
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• 2007

The site effects of seismic stations were evaluated by conducting a simultaneous inversion of the stochastic point-source ground-motion model (STGM model; Boore, 2003) parameters based on the accumulated dataset of horizontal shear-wave Fourier spectra. A model parameter $K_0$ and frequency-dependent site amplification function A(f) were used to express the site effects. Once after a H/V ratio of the Fourier spectra was used as an initial estimate of A(f) for the inversion, the final A(f) which is considered to be the result of combined effect of the crustal amplification and loca lsite effects was calculated by averaging the log residuals at the site from the inversion and adding the mean log residual to the H/V ratio. The seismic stations were classified into five classes according to $logA_{1-10}^{max}$(f), the maximum level of the site amplification function in the range of 1 Hz < f < 10 Hz, i.e., A: $logA_{1-10}^{max}$(f) < 0.2, B: 0.2 $\leq$ $logA_{1-10}^{max}$(f) < 0.4, C: 0.4 $\leq$ $logA_{1-10}^{max}$(f) < 0.6, D: 0.6 $\leq$ $logA_{1-10}^{max}$(f) < 0.8, E: 0.8 $\leq$ $logA_{1-10}^{max}$(f). Implication of the classified result was supported by observing a shift of the dominant frequency of average A(f) for each classified stations as the class changes. Change of site classes after moving seismic stations to a better site condition was successfully described by the result of the station classification. In addition, the observed PGA (Peak Ground Acceleration)-values for two recent moderate earthquakes were well classified according to the proposed station classes.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.759-768
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• 2015

The ground motions of large dimensional structures such as long span bridges at different stations during an earthquake, are inevitably different, which is known as the ground motion spatial variation effect. There are many causes that may result in the spatial variability in seismic ground motion, e.g., the wave passage effect due to the different arrival times of waves at different locations; the loss of coherency due to seismic waves scattering in the heterogeneous medium of the ground; the site amplification effect owing to different local soil properties. In previous researches, the site amplification effects have not been considered or considered by a single-layered soil model only. In this study, however, the ground motion amplification and filtering effects are evaluated by multi-layered soil model. Spatially varying ground motion at the sites with different number of layers, depths, and soil characteristics are generated and the variation characteristics of ground motion time histories according to the correlation of coherency loss function and soil conditions are evaluated. For the bridge system composed of two unit bridges, seismic behavior characteristics are analyzed using the generated seismic waves as input ground motion. Especially, relative displacement due to coherency loss and site effect which can cause the unseating and pounding between girders are evaluated. As a result, considering the soil conditions of each site are always important and should not be neglected for an accurate structural response analysis.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.191-202
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• 2007

To identify the detailed attenuation structure in the southern Korean Peninsula, a numerical test was conducted for the Q tomography inversion to be applied to the accumulated dataset until 2005. In particular, the stochastic pointsource ground-motion model (STGM model; Boore, 2003) was adopted for the 2D Q tomography inversion for direct application to simulating the strong ground-motion. Simultaneous inversion of the STGM model parameters with a regional single Q model was performed to evaluate the source and site effects which were necessary to generate an artificial dataset for the numerical test. The artificial dataset consists of simulated Fourier spectra that resemble the real data in the magnitude-distance-frequency-error distribution except replacement of the regional single Q model with a checkerboard type of high and low values of laterally varying Q models. The total number of Q blocks used for the checkerboard test was 75 (grid size of $35{\times}44km^2$ for Q blocks); Q functional form of $Q_0f^{\eta}$ ($Q_0$=100 or 500, 0.0 < ${\eta}$ < 1.0) was assigned to each Q block for the checkerboard test. The checkerboard test has been implemented in three steps. At the first step, the initial values of Q-values for 75 blocks were estimated. At the second step, the site amplification function was estimated by using the initial guess of A(f) which is the mean site amplification functions (Yun and Suh, 2007) for the site class. The last step is to invert the tomographic Q-values of 75 blocks based on the results of the first and second steps. As a result of the checkerboard test, it was demonstrated that Q-values could be robustly estimated by using the 2D Q tomography inversion method even in the presence of perturbed source and site effects from the true input model.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.55-65
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to estimate seismic damage for harbor site considering dynamic amplification characteristics. First of all, a series of ground response analysis is performed and then correlation equations between rock outcrop accelerations and peak ground accelerations (PGAs) are determined. These equations are saved into DB and when an earthquake occurs, PGAs are determined by them as soon as possible. For earthquake events, seismic damage grades of harbor structures are determined by using the correlated PGAs and fragility curves of harbor structures in real time. In this study, seismic damage was estimated and classified into several grades by applying two hypothetical earthquakes.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.27-37
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• 2009

A method of instrumentally estimating seismic intensity (MMI) based on the Fourier Acceleration Spectrum of earthquake ground-motion, the so-called 'FAS MMI method' of Sokolov and Wald (2002), was evaluated for its applicability to Korea based on the empirical models of mean (m) and standard deviation (${\sigma}$) for Korea according to individual seismic intensity for MMI ${\leq}$ IV (Yun et al., 2009). This evaluation showed that the error in estimating the seismic intensity using the FAS MMI method is ${\sigma}$ = 0.74 MMI, and was further reduced to ${\sigma}$ = 0.61 MMI if the dependency of the error on earthquake magnitude and distance is additionally corrected. It is also shown that FAS MMI based on the FAS semi-empirically evaluated from small earthquakes for damaging earthquakes in Korea with maximum MMI ${\geq}$ VI could predict the observed MMI with the maximum error of 0.63 by using the combined FAS m-${\sigma}$ models of Korea for MMI ${\leq}$ IV and global region for MMI ${\geq}$ V.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.35-44
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• 2022

The V_S30 map is used as a key variable for site amplification in the ShakeMap, which predicts ground motion at any site. However, no V_S30 map considering Korean geology and geomorphology has been developed yet. To develop a proxy-based V_S30 map, we used 1,101 V_S profiles obtained from a geophysical survey and collected proxy layers of geological and topographical information for the Korean Peninsula. Then, V_S30 prediction models were developed using linear regression analysis for each geological age considering the distribution of V_S30. As a result, models depending on geomorphology were suggested per each geologic group, including Quaternary, Fill, Ocean, Mesozoic group and Precambrian. Resolution of map is doubled from that of V_S30 map by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Standard deviation of residual in natural log of proxy-based V_S30 map is 0.233, whereas standard deviation of slope-based USGS V_S30 map is 0.387. Therefore, the proxy-based V_S30 map developed in this study is expected to have less uncertainty and to contribute to predicting more accurately the ground motion amplitude.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2008

Fault rupture directivity of the Odaesan earthquake, which was inferred to be the main cause of the high PGAvalue (> 0.1 g) unusually observed at the near-source region, was analyzed by using the data from the nearby (R < 100 km) dense seismic stations. The Boatwright's method (2007) was adopted for this purpose in which the azimuth and takeoff angle of the unilateral rupture directivity function could be estimated based on the relative peak ground-motions of seismic stations resulting from the nature of the rupture directivity. In this study, the approximate values of the relative peak ground-motions was derived from the difference between the log residuals of the point-source spectral model (Boore, 2003) for the main and secondary events based on the Random Vibration Theory. In this derivation, the spectral difference for a frequency range between the source corner frequencies of main and secondary events was considered to reflect only the effect of the fault directivity. The inversion result of the model parameters for the fault directivity function showed that the fault-plane of NWW-SEE direction dipping steeply to the North with high rupture velocity near upward in SE direction is responsible for the observed high level of ground-motion at the near-source region.