• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.35-41
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• 2009

It is necessary to consider the site amplification for estimating SSI (soil structure interaction) and seismic source with more confidence. The horizontal to vertical (H/V) ratio technique in spectral domain is one of several techniques to estimate empirical site transfer function. The technique, originally proposed by Nakamura (1989), is applied to analyze the surface waves in the microtremor records. However, the application of this technique has been widened to the shear wave energy of strong motions for estimating site amplification. 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 each station has the its own characteristics of the specific resonance, high-band, and low-band frequency. The characteristics of the resonance frequency is more important because the quality of the seismic records are dependent on the resonance frequency. The result can be used for the study of site classification and removal of the site amplification effects from observed records can give us more reliable seismic source parameters.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.59-66
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• 2008

Seismic safety is more important for large spatial structure such as theaters, stadiums, gymnasiums since these structure are public goods. It is, however, difficult to understand behavior taking place when large spatial structure which has variety of structural system and shape receives seismic load. On this study, the natural vibration mode of arch structure which is main structural element of the large spatial structure, is checked. And then, when the artificial earthquake ground motion is applied to arch structure, it is more affective by long period component than magnitude of design acceleration spectrum.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.201-213
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• 2015

Site effects resulting in the amplification of earthquake ground motion are strongly influenced not only by the subsurface soil conditions and structure, but also by the surface topography. Yet, over the last several decades, most studies of site-specific seismic responses in Korea have focused primarily on the seismic amplification associated with geologic and soil conditions. For example, the effects of local geology are now well established and have been incorporated into current Korean seismic design codes, whereas topographic effects have not been considered. To help address this shortcoming, two-dimensional (2D) seismic site response analyses, using finite element (FE) ground modeling with three different slope angles, were performed in order to assess the site effects of surface topography. We then compared our results, specifically peak ground acceleration (PGA) and acceleration response spectrum, to those of one-dimensional (1D) FE model analyses conducted alongside our study. Throughout much of the upper slope region, PGAs and spectral accelerations are larger in the 2D analyses than in the 1D analyses as a result of the topographic effect.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.135-141
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• 2009

For more reliable estimation of soil-structure interaction and seismic source and attenuation properties, site amplification function should be considered. This study use the Nakamura's method (1989) for estimating site amplification though various methods for the same purpose have been proposed. This method was originally applied to the surface waves of background noise and therefore there are some limitation for applications to general wave energy. However, recently this method has been extended and applied to the S wave energy successfully. This study applied the method to the coda wave energy which is equivalent to the backscattered S wave energy. We used more than 60 observed ground motions from 5 earthquakes which occurred recently, with magnitude range from 3.6 to 5.1 Each station showed characteristic site amplification property in low-, high- and resonance frequency ranges. In the case of comparing these results to those from S wave energy, lots of information to the site classification work can be gained. Moreover, removal of site amplification can give us more reliable seismic source parameters.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.137-143
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• 2010

An earthquake with local magnitude $(M_L)$ 3.7 on December 9, 2000 occurred offshore Yeongdeok area, South Korea. In case of applying Chang and Baag (2006) crustal velocity model, the epicenter is $36.4462^{\circ}N\;and\;129.9789^{\circ}E$, which belongs to the inside of the Korean Peninsula Continental Shelf. Although we use the modified model reducing crustal thickness of Chang and Baag (2006) model by 5 km considering the transition from continental crust to oceanic crust in the East Sea, the epicenter was little changed. We carried out the waveform inversion analysis to estimate focal depth and focal mechanism of this event. The focal depth is estimated to be 11 ~ 12 km. The seismic moment is estimated to be $1.0{\times}10^{15}N{\cdot}m$, and this value corresponds to the moment magnitude $(M_W)$ 3.9. The offshore Yeongdeok event including May 29, 2004 offshore Uljin one show typical thrust faulting, and the direction of P-axis is ESE-WNW. The moment magnitude estimated by the spectral analysis is 4.0, which is similar to that by the waveform inversion analysis. Average stress drop is estimated to be 3.4 MPa.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.273-281
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• 2014

In most current seismic design codes, design earthquake ground motions are defined by a reference spectrum, based on bedrock and site amplification factors that quantify the geotechnical dynamic conditions. Earthquake engineering bedrock is the fundamental geotechnical formation where the seismic waves are attenuated without amplification. To better define bedrock in an earthquake engineering context, shear wave velocity ($V_S$ ) data obtained from in-situ seismic tests were examined for several rock strata in Korea; these data were categorized by borehole drilling investigations. The $V_S$ values for most soft rock data in Korea are > 750 m/s, which is the threshold $V_S$ value for identifying engineering bedrock from a strong motion station. Conversely, VS values are < 750 m/s for 60% of $V_S$ data in weathered rock in Korea. Thus, the soft (or harder) rock strata below the weathered rock layer in Korea can be regarded as earthquake engineering bedrock.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1C
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• pp.63-74
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• 2008

Site response analyses were performed based on equivalent linear technique using the local geologic and dynamic site characteristics, which include soil profiles, shear wave velocity profiles and depth to bedrock for 125 sites collected in Korean Peninsula. From the results of site response analyses, 2-parameters site classification system based on the combination of mean shear wave velocity of soil and depth to bedrock was newly recommended for regions of shallow bedrock depth in Korea. First, as the borders of bedrock depth (H) for site classification were determined as 10m and 20m, the soil sites were divided into 3 classes as $H_1$, $H_2$ and $H_3$ sites. And then, the 3 site classes were subdivided into 7 classes based on the mean shear wave velocity of soil ($V_{s,soil}$). The feasibility of new site classification system was verified and the representative site coefficients ($F_a$ and $F_v$) and design response spectrum were suggested by analyzing uniform trend and dispersion of site coefficients for each site class. The suggested site coefficients and the regression curves present the nonlinear characteristics of soils according to the change of rock outcrop acceleration with uniform trend effectively. From the comparison between the mean values of response spectrum which was acquired from the site response analysis and the suggested design response spectrum, there was a little difference in some of site classes and it was verified to adjust the integration interval to make it more suitable for the site condition in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.37 no.12
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• pp.7-23
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• 2021

Underground utility tunnels, which contribute to supply of electricity, communication, water and heat, are critical lifelines of an urban area. In case service is discontinued or functional disruption happens, there will be a huge socio-economic impact. For the improved seismic design and evaluation of underground structures, this study proposes a ground displacement measure when the site is subjected to a scenario earthquake based on hazard-consistent source spectra and site amplification/attenuation. This measure provides a rational estimation of ground displacement and can be an alternative to existing response displacement methods.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.157-165
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• 2011

Base isolation system is widely used for reduction of dynamic responses of structures subjected to seismic load. Recently, research on a smart base isolation system that can effectively reduce dynamic responses of the isolated structure without accompanying increases in base drifts has been actively conducted. In this study, a smart base isolation system was applied to an arch structure subjected to seismic excitation and its control performance for reduction of seismic responses was evaluated. In order to make a smart base isolation system, 4kN MR dampers and low damping elastomeric bearings were used. Seismic response control performance of the proposed smart base isolation system was compared to that of the optimally designed lead-rubber bearing(LRB) isolation system. To this end, an artificial ground motion developed based on KBC2009 design response spectrum was used as a seismic excitation. Fuzzy control algorithm was used to control MR damper in the smart base isolation system and multi-objective genetic algorithm was employed to optimize the fuzzy controller. Based on numerical simulation results, it has been shown that the smart base isolation system can drastically reduce base drifts and seismic responses of the example arch structure in comparison with LRB isolation system.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.36 no.7
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• pp.632-642
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• 2015

Seismograms are composed of 3 characteristics, that is, seismic source, attenuation, and site amplification. Among them, site amplification characteristics should be considered significantly to estimate seismic source and attenuation characteristics with more confidence. This purpose of this study is to estimate the site amplification characteristics at each site using horizontal to vertical (H/V) spectral ratio method. This method, originally proposed by Nakamura (1989), has been applied to study the surface waves in microtremor records. It has been recently extended to the shear wave energy of strong motion and applied to the study of site amplification. This study analyzed the H/V spectral ratio of 6 ground motions respectively using observed data from 4 sites nearby in Yedang Reservoir. And then, site amplification effects at each site, from 3 kinds of seismic energies, that is, S waves, Coda waves energy, and background noise were compared each other. The results suggested that 4 sites showed its own characteristics of site amplification property in specific resonance frequency ranges (YDS: ~11 Hz, YDU: ~4 Hz, YDD: ~7 Hz). Comparison of this study to other studies using different analysis method can give us much more information about dynamic amplification of domestic sites characteristics and site classification.