• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.1 s.53
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• pp.59-65
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• 2007

Site classification of IBC and KBC is based on the ft-kips unit system and is not friendly for the linear interpolation of the site coefficients due to the implicit relationship between a site class and site coefficients, defining a site class by the range of the soil properties, not by a single soil property. Also, the site class definition of KBC has too wide range of soil properties for each soil class. making the structural engineers difficult to estimate the site coefficients for the diverse soil layers. In this study, a new site classification in SI unit system was proposed for the seismic design codes of KBC etc., and the comparison of the site coefficients of $F_{a}\;and\;F_{v}$ was also performed to investigate the possibility of the linear interpolation of the site coefficients with the proposed new site classification. According to the study results, it was more reasonable for the linear interpolation of the site coefficients to utilize the proposed new site classification considered the Sl unit system and the soil characteristics of the 30m soil layer beneath the shallow embedded foundation, and the linear interpolation of the acceleration coefficients for the design spectrum can be performed more reasonably defining the site coefficients for the representative shear wave velocities of each site class. With the study results, a new site classification, and the linear interpolation permitted acceleration coefficients fer the design spectrum were proposed for the modification of the seismic design regulations of KBC.