• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2009

More than 40% of railway bridges on the conventional lines in Korea consist of track-on-steel plate girder (TOSPG) bridges. This type of bridge is typically designed without considering seismic loadings, as most of them were built before 1970. The seismic performance of this particular type of bridge could be upgraded through various seismic retrofit schemes, and seismic risk assessment could play a key role in decision-making on the level of the seismic retrofit. This study performed a seismic risk assessment of TOSPG bridges in Korea. The seismic damage of several crucial components of TOSPG bridges--fixed bearings, free bearings, and piers--were probabilistically estimated, and their seismic fragility curves were developed. The probability that the components would exceed their predefined limit states was also calculated by combining the fragility curves and the seismic hazard function. The analysis showed that the piers of TOSPG bridges, which are made of plain concrete without rebars, have relatively low risk against seismic loadings in Korea. This is because the mass of the superstructures of TOSPG bridges is relatively small, and hence, the seismic loading being transferred to the piers is minimal. The line-type bearings typically used for TOSPG bridges, however, are exposed to a degree of seismic risk. Among the bearings, the probability of the free-end bearings and the fixed-end bearings exceeding the slight damage state in 50 years was found to be 12.78% and 4.23%, respectively. The gap between these probability values lessened towards more serious damage states. This study could effectively provide an engineering background for decision-making activities on the seismic retrofit of railway bridges.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.1 s.41
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• pp.33-42
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• 2005

Even in moderate to low seismic regions like Korean peninsular where wind loading usually governs the structural design of a tall builidng, the probable structural impact of the 500-year design basis earthquake (DBE) or the 2400-year maximum credible earthquake (MCE) on the selected structural system should be considered at least in finalizing the design. In this study, seismic performance evaluation was conducted for concentrically braced steel highrise buildings that were only designed for wind by following the assumed domestic design practice. It was found that wind-designed concentrically braced steel highrise buildings possess significantly increased elastic seimsic capacity due to the system overstrength resulting from the wind-serviceability criterion and the width-to-thickness ratio limits on steel members. The strength demand-to-strength capacity study based on the response spectrum analysis revealed that, due to the system overstrength factors mentioned above, wind-designed concentrically braced steel highrise buildings having a slenderness ratio of larger than six can withstand elastically even the maximum credible earthquake at the performance level of immediate occupancy.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.85-93
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• 2010

This paper suggests a vibration control method long span structures with trussed roof. Basic concept of this method is based on the energy absorption through hysteresis loop of an elasto-plastic element. This element is attached on the top of the column supporting the roof. Two different types of roofs and three of earthquake waves are used in the investigation. It shows that this is very efficient method to reduce the seismic energy of roof member transferred from the column.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.553-562
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• 2006

Lateral loading due to wind or earthquake is a major factor that affects the design of high-rise buildings. This paper highlights the problems associated with the seismic design of high-rise buildings in regions of strong wind and moderate seismicity. Seismic response analysis and performance evaluation were conducted for wind-designed concentrically braced steel high-rise buildings in order to check the feasibility of designing them per elastic seismic design criterion (or strength and stiffness solution) in such regions. Review of wind design and pushover analysis results indicated that wind-designed high-rise buildings possess significantly increased elastic seismic capacity due to the overstrength resulting from the wind serviceability criterion. The strength demand-to-capacity study showed that, due to the wind design overstrength, high-rise buildings with a slenderness ratio of larger than four or five can elastically withstand even the maximum considered earthquake (MCE) with the seismic performance level of immediate occupancy under the limited conditions of this study. A step-by-step seismic design procedure per the elastic criterion that is directly usable for practicing design engineers is also recommended.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.3 s.49
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• pp.57-64
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• 2006

Seismic design codes are mainly based on the research results for the inelastic response of structures in high seismicity regions. Since wind loads and gravity loads may govern the design in low seismicity regions in many cases, structures subjected to design seismic loads will have larger overstrength compared to those of high seismicity regions. Therefore, it is necessary to verify if the response modification factor based on high seismicity would be adequate for the design of structures in low seismicity regions. In this study, the adequacy of the response modification factor was verified based on the ductility and overstrength of building structures estimated from the result of nonlinear static analysis. Framed structures are designed for the seismic zones 1, 2A, 4 in UBC-97 representing the low, moderated and high seismicity regions and the overstrength factors and ductility demands of the example structures are investigated. When the same response modification factor was used in the design, inelastic response of structures in low seismicity regions turned out to be much smaller than that in high seismicity regions because of the larger overstrength of structures in low seismicity regions. Demands of plastic rotation in connections and ductility in members were much lower in the low seismicity regions compared to those of the high seismicity regions when the structures are designed with the same response modification factor.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.85-92
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• 2023

Unlike a completed building, a building under construction may be at risk in terms of safety if a load exceeds the value considered in the design stage owing to various factors, such as a load action different from that in the design stage and insufficient concrete strength. In addition, if an earthquake occurs in a building under construction, greater damage may occur. Therefore, this study studied example models with various sizes of 5, 15, 25, and 60 floors for typical building types and analyzed the effects of seismic load on buildings under construction using construction-stage models according to frame completeness. Because the construction period of the building is much shorter than the period of use after completion, applying same earthquake loads as the design stage to buildings under construction may be excessive. Therefore, earthquakes with a return period of 50 to 2,400 years were applied to the construction stage model to review the seismic loads and analyze the structural performances of the members. Thus, we reviewed whether a load exceeding that of the design stage was applied and the return period level of the earthquake that could ensure structural safety. In addition, assuming the construction period of each example model, the earthquake return period according to the construction period was selected, and the design appropriateness with the selected return period was checked.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.66-70
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• 2016

Following the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident, the IAEA has issued a revised version of the Nuclear Safety Standard for beyond design basis earthquake to consider the core meltdown accident. In Korea, relevant laws and regulations were also revised to consider beyond design basis earthquake to nuclear components. In this paper, CAV, an seismic damage factor that determines the restart of nuclear power plant after operating breakdown earthquake, is proposed for extension to the beyond design basis earthquake. For pipings not satisfying the beyond design basis earthquake condition, several evaluation methods are suggested, such as strain-based evaluation methods, simple nonlinear analysis method and cumulative damage evaluation method.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.35-45
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• 2012

Pseudo static analysis using the Mononobe-Okabe method and numerical analysis considering a small strain nonlinearity from the soil were performed to determine the bearing pressure changes of the inverted T-type retaining wall subjected to earthquake motions. In many cases, an inverted 'T' type retaining wall of more than 10 m shows bearing capacity failure under earthquake conditions, despite showing sufficient bearing capacity during normal conditions. The most important reason for this is the change of the effective base area during an earthquake. In this paper, the change of the effective base area of an inverted 'T' type wall is analyzed by using finite difference element code (FLAC). In addition, the effect of dynamic bearing capacity coefficients (which has been suggested by several researchers but not adopted in current design codes and procedures) was verified.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.274-281
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• 2011

We analysed ground motions form Mw 4.3 earthquake around Backryoung Island for the seismic source focal mechanism and horizontal response spectrum. Focal mechanism of the Backryoung Islands area was compared to existing principal stress orientation of the Korean Peninsula and horizontal response spectrum was also compared to those of the US NRC Regulatory Guide (1.60) and the Korean National Building Code. The ground motions of 3 stations, including vertical, radial, and tangential components for each station, were used for grid search method of moment tensor seismic source. The principal stress orientation from this study, ENE-WSW, is consistent fairly well with that of the Korean Peninsula. The horizontal response spectrum using 30 observed ground motions analysed and then were compared to both the seismic design response spectra (Reg Guide 1.60), applied to the domestic nuclear power plants, and the Korean Standard Design Response Spectrum for general structures and buildings (1997). Response spectrum of 30 horizontal ground motions were used for normalization with respect to the peak acceleration value of each ground motion. The results showed that the horizontal response spectrum revealed higher values for frequency bands above 3 Hz than Reg. Guide (1.60). The results were also compared to the Korean Standard Response Spectrum for the 3 different soil types and showed that the vertical response spectra revealed higher values for the frequency bands below 0.8 second than the Korean Standard Response Spectrum (SD soil condition). However, through the qualitative improvements and quantitative enhancement of the observed ground motions, the conservation of horizontal seismic design response spectrum should be considered more significantly for the higher frequency bands.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.5-10
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• 2019

In recent Gyeongju and Pohang earthquakes, motions that exceed the design ground motion were recorded. This has led to adjustments to the design earthquake intensity in selected design guidelines. An increment in the design intensity requires reevaluation of all associated facilities, requiring extensive time and cost. Firstly, the seismic factor of safety of built concrete retaining walls are calculated. Secondly, the seismic margin of concrete retaining walls is evaluated. The design sections of concrete walls built at power plants and available site investigation reports are utilized. Widely used pseudo-static analysis method is used to evaluate the seismic performance. It is shown that all concrete walls are safe against the adjusted design ground motion. To determine the seismic margin of concrete walls, the critical accelerations, which is defined as the acceleration that causes the seismic factor of safety to exceed the allowable value, are calculated. The critical acceleration is calculated as 0.36g~0.8g. The limit accelerations are significantly higher than the design intensity and are demonstrated to have sufficient seismic margin. Therefore, it is concluded that the concrete retaining walls do not need to be reevaluated even if the design demand is increased up to 0.3g.