• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.821-831
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• 2019

The 9.12 earthquake (2016.9.12., M_L=5.8) and Pohang (2017.11.15., M_L=5.4) caused social and economic damage, resulting in a greater public interest in earthquakes than in the past. In the U.S., Japan and Chile, which have high frequency of earthquakes, infrastructure facilities are already managed based on probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) and ground motion prediction equation (GMPE) to prepare for and respond to seismic disasters. In South Korea, the aforementioned PSHA and GMPE models have been developed independently through individual researchers. However, the limited disclosure of basic data, calculation methods, and final results created during the model development poses a problem of deploying new data without updating the earthquake that occurs every year. Therefore, this paper describes how to create flatfile, which is the basic data of GMPE, and how to process for seismic waves, and how to create intensity measures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.125-141
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• 1998

Recent test results of steel moment connections repaired with a haunch on the bottom side of the beam have been shown to be a very promising solution to enhancing the seismic performance of steel moment-resisting frames. Yet, little is known about the effects of using such a repair scheme on the global seismic response of structures. When haunches are incorporated in a steel moment frame, the response prediction is complicated by the presence of "dual" panel zones. To investigate the effects of a repair on seismic performance, a case study was conducted for a 13-story steel frame damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. It was assumed that only those locations with reported damage would be repaired with haunches. A new analytical modeling technique for the dual panel zone developed by the author was incorporated in the analysis. Modeling the dual panel zone was among the most significant consideration in the analyses. Both the inelastic static and dynamic analyses did not indicate detrimental side effects resulting from the repair. As a result of the increased strength in dual panel zones, yielding in these locations were eliminated and larger plastic rotation demand occurred in the beams next to the shallow end of the haunches. Nevertheless, the beam plastic rotation demand produced by the Sylmar record of 1994 Northridge earthquake was still limited to 0.017 radians. The repair resulted in a minor increase in earthquake energy input. In the original structure, the panel zones should dissipate about 80% (for the Oxnard record) and 70% (for the Sylmar record) of the absorbed energy, assuming no brittle failure of moment connections. After repair, the energy dissipated in the panel zones and beams were about equal.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.78 no.3
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• pp.351-368
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• 2021

This paper, by applying a reliability-based framework, develops seismic vulnerability macrozonation maps for Tehran, the capital and one of the most earthquake-vulnerable city of Iran. Seismic performance assessment of 3-, 4- and 5-story steel moment resisting frames (SMRFs), designed according to ASCE/SEI 41-17 and Iranian Code of Practice for Seismic Resistant Design of Buildings (2800 Standard), is investigated in terms of overall maximum inter-story drift ratio (MIDR) and unit repair cost ratio which is hereafter known as "damage ratio". To this end, Tehran city is first meshed into a network of 66 points to numerically locate low- to mid-rise SMRFs. Active faults around Tehran are next modeled explicitly. Two different combination of faults, based on available seismological data, are then developed to explore the impact of choosing a proper seismic scenario. In addition, soil effect is exclusively addressed. After building analytical models, reliability methods in combination with structure-specific probabilistic models are applied to predict demand and damage ratio of structures in a cost-effective paradigm. Due to capability of proposed methodology incorporating both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties explicitly, this framework which is centered on the regional demand and damage ratio estimation via structure-specific characteristics can efficiently pave the way for decision makers to find the most vulnerable area in a regional scale. This technical basis can also be adapted to any other structures which the demand and/or damage ratio prediction models are developed.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.59-70
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• 2022

There is a growing interest in evaluating earthquake damage and determining disaster prevention measures due to the magnitude 5.8 earthquake in Pohang, Korea. Since the liquefaction phenomena occurred extensively in the residential area as a result of the earthquake, there was a demand for research on liquefaction phenomenon evaluation and liquefaction disaster prediction. Liquefaction is defined as a phenomenon where the strength of the ground is completely lost due to a sudden increase in excess pore water pressure caused due to large dynamic stress, such as an earthquake, acting on loose sand particles in a short period of time. The liquefaction potential index, which can identify the occurrence of liquefaction and predict the risk of liquefaction in a targeted area, can be used to create a liquefaction hazard map. However, since liquefaction assessment using existing field testing is predicated on a single borehole liquefaction assessment, there has been a representative issue for the whole targeted area. Spatial interpolation and geographic information systems can help to solve this issue to some extent. Therefore, in order to solve the representative problem of geotechnical information, this research uses the kriging method, one of the geostatistical spatial interpolation techniques, and constructs a geotechnical information database for liquefaction and spatial interpolation. Additionally, the liquefaction hazard map was created for each return period using the constructed geotechnical information database. Cross validation was used to confirm the accuracy of this liquefaction hazard map.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.119-133
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• 2017

Several theoretical and analytical formulations for the prediction of shear strength in reinforced concrete (RC) beam-to-column joints have been recently developed. Some of these predictive models are included in the most recent seismic codes and currently used in practical design. On the other hand, the influence of the stiffness and strength degradations in RC joints on the seismic performance of RC framed buildings has been only marginally studied, and it is generally neglected in practice-oriented seismic analysis. To investigate such influence, this paper proposes a numerical description for representing the cyclic response of RC exterior joints. This is then used in nonlinear numerical simulations of RC frames subjected to earthquake loading. According to the proposed strategy, RC joints are modelled using nonlinear rotational spring elements with strength and stiffness degradations and limited ductility under cyclic loading. The proposed joint model has been firstly calibrated against the results from experimental tests on 12 RC exterior joints. Subsequently, nonlinear static and dynamic analyses have been carried out on two-, three- and four-storey RC frames, which represent realistic existing structures designed according to old standards. The numerical results confirm that the global seismic response of the analysed RC frames is strongly affected by the hysteretic damage in the beam-to-column joints, which determines the failure mode of the frames. This highlights that neglecting the effects of joints damage may potentially lead to non-conservative seismic assessment of existing RC framed structures.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.13D no.6 s.109
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• pp.775-788
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• 2006

Many disaster monitoring systems are constantly studied to prevent disasters such as environmental pollution, the breaking of a tunnel and a building, flooding, storm earthquake according to the progress of wireless telecommunication, the miniaturization of terminal devices, and the spread of sensor network. A disaster monitoring system can extract information of a remote place, process sensor data with rules to recognize disaster situation, and provide work for preventing disaster. However existing monitoring systems are not enough to predict and prevent disaster, because they can only process current sensor data through utilizing simple aggregation function and operators. In this paper, we design and implement a disaster prevention system to predict near future dangerous area through using outside sensor network and spatial Information. The provided prediction technique considers the change of spatial information over time with current sensor data, and indicates the place that could be dangerous in near future. The system can recognize which place would be dangerous and prepare the disaster prevention. Therefore, damage of disaster and cost of recovery would be reduced. The provided disaster prevention system and prediction technique could be applied to various disaster prevention systems and be utilized for preventing disaster and reducing damages.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.409-430
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• 2006

The aim of this study is to investigate the reliability of strong motion records processed by causal and acausal Butterworth filters in comparison to the results obtained from a synthetic accelerogram. For this purpose, the fault parallel component of the Bolu record of the Duzce earthquake is modeled with a sum of exponentially damped sinusoidal components. Noise-free velocities and displacements are then obtained by analytically integrating the synthetic acceleration model. The analytical velocity and displacement signals are used as a standard with which to judge the validity of the signals obtained by filtering with causal and acausal filters and numerically integrating the acceleration model. The results show that the acausal filters are clearly preferable to the causal filters due to the fact that the response spectra obtained from the acausal filters match the spectra obtained from the simulated accelerogram better than that obtained by causal filters. The response spectra are independent from the order of the filters and from the method of integration (whether analytical integration after a spline fit to the synthetic accelerogram or the trapezoidal rule). The response spectra are sensitive to the chosen corner frequency of both the causal and the acausal filters and also to the inclusion of the pads. Accurate prediction of the static residual displacement (SRD) is very important for structures traversing faults in the near-fault regions. The greatest adverse effect of the high pass filters is their removal of the SRD. However, the noise-free displacements obtained by double integrating the synthetic accelerogram analytically preserve the SRD. It is thus apparent that conventional high pass filters should not be used for processing near-fault strong-motion records although they can be reliably used for far-fault records if applied acausally. The ground motion parameters such as ARIAS intensity, HUSID plots, Housner spectral intensity and the duration of strong-motion are found to be insensitive to the causality of filters.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.1511-1521
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• 2012

An attempt is made to analyse characteristic features of heavy rainfalls which occur at the metropolitan area of the Korean peninsular the on- and off- Changma season. For this, two representative heavy rainfall episodes are selected; one is the on-Changma season wherein a torrential rain episode happened at Goyang city on 12 July 2006, and the other is the off-Changma season, a heavy rainfall event in Seoul on 21 September 2006. Both recorded considerable amounts of precipitation, over 250mm in a half-day, which greatly exceeded the amount expected by numerical prediction models at those times, and caused great damage to property and life in the affected area. Similarities in the characteristics of both episodes were shown by; the location of upper-level jet streak and divergence fields of the upper wind over heavy rainfall areas, significantly high equivalent potential temperatures in the low atmospheric layer due to the entrainment of hot and humid air by the low-level jet, and the existence of very dry air and cold air pool in the middle layer of the atmosphere at the peak time of the rainfall events. Among them, differences in dynamic features of the low-level jet and the position of rainfall area along the low-level jet are remarkable.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.2
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• pp.153-166
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• 2022

Structural pounding due to strong seismic excitations can result in severe damage or even collapse of colliding structures. Many researchers focused on studying the mutual pounding between two adjacent structures while very few researches were concerned with the pounding of a series of structures. This paper aims to study the pounding effect on a series of four buildings having different natural frequencies. The paper also investigates the effect of different arrangements of the four buildings on their pounding response. For this, a mathematical model was constructed using Matlab code where, pounding was modeled using a contact force-based approach. A Non-Linear viscoelastic (Hertzdamp) contact element was used and activated only during the approach period of collision. The mathematical model was validated by comparing its prediction versus experimental results on three adjacent buildings. Then the model was used to study the pounding between four adjacent structures arranged in different sequences according to their natural frequencies. The results revealed that increasing the gap distance generally led to decrease the peak responses of the towers. Such response is somehow different from that predicted earlier by the authors for the case of three adjacent buildings. Moreover, the arrangement of towers has a significant effect on their pounding response. Significant difference between the natural frequencies of adjacent structures increases the pounding forces especially when the more flexible buildings are located at the outer edge of the series. The study points out the need for further researches on buildings in series to gain a better understanding of such complex phenomena.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.45-54
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• 2010

It is important to calculate the natural frequency of a piled structure in the design stage in order to prevent resonance-induced damage to the pile foundation and analyze the dynamic behavior of the piled structure during an earthquake. In this paper, a simple but relatively accurate method employing a mass-spring model is presented for the evaluation of the natural frequency of a pile-soil system. Greatly influencing the calculation of the natural frequency of a piled structure, the spring stiffness between a pile and soil was evaluated by using the coefficient of subgrade reaction, the p-y curve, and the subsoil elastic modulus. The resulting natural frequencies were compared with those of 1-g shaking table tests. The comparison showed that the natural frequency of the pile-soil system could be most accurately calculated by constructing a stiffness matrix with the spring stiffness of the Reese (1974) method, which utilizes the coefficient of the subgrade reaction modulus, and Yang's (2009) dynamic p-y backbone curve method. The calculated natural frequencies were within 5% error compared with those of the shaking table tests for the pile system in dry dense sand deposits and 5% to 40% error for the pile system in saturated sand deposits depending on the occurrence of excess pore water pressure in the soil.