• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.71 no.3
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• pp.305-315
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• 2019

Extremely long-span transmission tower-line system is an indispensable portion of an electricity transmission system, and its failures or collapse can impact on the entire electricity grid, affect the modern life, and cause great economic losses. It is therefore imperative to investigate the failure and safety of the transmission tower subjected to ground motions. In the present study, a detailed finite element (FE) model of a representative extremely long-span transmission tower-line system is established. A segmental damage indicator (SDI) is proposed to quantitatively assess the damage level of each segment of the transmission tower under earthquakes. Additionally, parametric studies are conducted to investigate the influence of different ground motions and incident angles on the ultimate capacity and weakest segment of the transmission tower. Finally, the collapse fragility curve in terms of the maximum SDI value and PGA is plotted for the exampled transmission tower. The results show that the proposed SDI can quantitatively assess the damage level of the segments, and thus determine the ultimate capacity and weakest segment of the transmission tower. Moreover, the different ground motions and incident angles have a significant influence on the SDI values of the transmission tower, and the collapse fragility curve is utilized to evaluate the collapse resistant capacity of the transmission tower subjected to ground motions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.577-587
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• 2018

The quantitative assessment of the seismic collapse risk of a structure requires the usage of an optimal intensity measure (IM) which can adequately characterise the severity of the ground motion. Research suggests that the average spectral acceleration ($Sa_{avg}$) may be an efficient and sufficient alternate IM as compared to the more traditional first mode spectral acceleration, $Sa(T_1)$, particularly during seismic collapse risk estimation. This study primarily presents a comparative evaluation of the sufficiency of the average spectral acceleration with respect to ground motion duration, and secondarily assesses the impact of ground motion duration on collapse risk estimation. By assembling a suite of 100 historical ground motions, incremental dynamic analysis of 60 different inelastic single-degree-of-freedom (SDF) oscillators with varying periods and ductility capacities were analysed, and collapse risk estimates obtained. Linear regression models are used to comparatively quantify the sufficiency of $Sa_{avg}$ and $Sa(T_1)$ using four significant duration metrics. Results suggests that an improved sufficiency may exist for $Sa_{avg}$ when the period of the SDF system increases, particularly beyond 0.5, as compare to $Sa(T_1)$. In reference to the ground motion duration measures, results indicated that the sufficiency of $Sa_{avg}$ is more sensitive to significant duration definitions that consider almost the full wave train of an accelerogram ($SD_{a5-95}$ and $SD_{v5-95}$). In order to obtain a reduced variability of the collapse risk estimate, the 5-95% significant duration metric defined using the Arias integral ($SD_{a5-95}$) should be used for seismic collapse risk estimation in conjunction with $Sa_{avg}$.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.8
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• pp.1402-1411
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• 2018

Nuclear-related facilities can be detrimentally affected by ground vibrations due to the collapse of adjacent cooling towers in nuclear power plants. To reduce this hazard risk, a design-oriented acceleration response spectrum (ARS) was proposed to predict the dynamic responses of nuclear-related facilities subjected to ground vibrations. For this purpose, 20 computational cases were performed based on cooling tower-soil numerical models developed in previous studies. This resulted in about 2664 ground vibration records to build a basic database and five complementary databases with consideration of primary factors that influence ground vibrations. Afterwards, these databases were applied to generate the design-oriented ARS using a response spectrum analysis approach. The proposed design-oriented ARS covers a wide range of natural periods up to 6 s and consists of an ascending portion, a plateau, and two connected descending portions. Spectral parameters were formulated based on statistical analysis. The spectrum was verified by comparing the representative acceleration magnitudes obtained from the design-oriented ARS with those from computational cases using cooling tower-soil numerical models with reasonable consistency.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.489-501
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• 2017

The collapse accidents during a open ground excavation in urban areas not only lead to human injuries and material damages in the construction site, but also lead to road sinks and damages to the adjacent facilities due to settlement of ground around the construction site. Therefore, during a open ground excavation in the urban areas, it is necessary to thoroughly prepare for prevention of collapse accidents, and consider whole construction stage such as planning, design and construction. In this study, the priorities to be managed mainly were obtained in order to prevent collapse accidents during a open ground excavation. After analyzing results from past accidents cases for open ground excavations, priorities were evaluated regarding collapse-inducing elements using the Delphi technique which is a decision-making method by consensus among experts. As a result, insufficient groundwater treatment, bad geotechnical investigation and instability on construction, etc. were obtained as priorities for prevention of collapse accidents.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.725-745
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• 2009

In this paper, probabilistic seismic performance assessment of a typical non-seismic RC frame building representative of a large inventory of existing buildings in developing countries is conducted. Nonlinear time-history analyses of the sample building are performed with 20 large-magnitude medium distance ground motions scaled to different levels of intensity represented by peak ground acceleration and 5% damped elastic spectral acceleration at the first mode period of the building. The hysteretic model used in the analyses accommodates stiffness degradation, ductility-based strength decay, hysteretic energy-based strength decay and pinching due to gap opening and closing. The maximum inter story drift ratios obtained from the time-history analyses are plotted against the ground motion intensities. A method is defined for obtaining the yielding and collapse capacity of the analyzed structure using these curves. The fragility curves for yielding and collapse damage levels are developed by statistically interpreting the results of the time-history analyses. Hazard-survival curves are generated by changing the horizontal axis of the fragility curves from ground motion intensities to their annual probability of exceedance using the log-log linear ground motion hazard model. The results express at a glance the probabilities of yielding and collapse against various levels of ground motion intensities.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.23-30
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• 2018

According to recent ground collapse occurrence, ground subsidence is increasing every year in downtown area, which is a social problem. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between ground water level lowering and ground collapse through laboratory model experiments. After mixing 1:1 granite weathered soil with sand, sandy soil was formed as a relative density of 30%, 50%, and 80%. And then the changes of soil discharge with change of groundwater level were compared. The physical property of material of which particle distribution were well graded with maximu dry unit weight of $1.94kg/cm^3$ and internal friction angle of 37degrees. Ground water levels were measured at 10 cm, 20 cm, and 30 cm from the bottom. As a result, the experiment shows that the higher the groundwater level works the higher the discharge velocity and the magnitude of underground cavity also increases with elapsed time. Finally, the cumulative quantity of soil discharge occurred up to 30 kg at the elapsed time, 35 minutes. It was also confirmed that the range of ground collapse increased due to soil discharge with ground water level lowering.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1999.03a
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• pp.323-330
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• 1999

Daylight collapse have been occurred by about 5.0m deep at ground surface and collapse of the crown head part of the tunnel have connected to the ground surface during first step of shotcrete work after blasting of upper half section of the tunnel driving at two-way double track tunnel face section on highway construction. This study is for a successful illustration case for the earth improvement method through applying such strengthening methods as cement milk grouting, S.G.R grouting,, steel pipe reinforced multi-step grouting etc. for the purpose of earth strengthening of loosened earth block occurred by tunnel collapse.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.491-503
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• 2021

Shallow tunnels are vulnerable to earthquakes, and shallow ground is usually inhomogeneous. Based on the limit equilibrium method and variational principle, a solution for the seismic collapse mechanism of shallow tunnel in inhomogeneous ground is presented. And the finite difference method is employed to compare with the analytical solution. It shows that the analytical results are conservative when the horizontal and vertical stresses equal the static earth pressure and zero at vault section, respectively. The safety factor of shallow tunnel changes greatly during an earthquake. Hence, the cyclic loading characteristics should be considered to evaluate tunnel stability. And the curve sliding surface agrees with the numerical simulation and previous studies. To save time and ensure accuracy, the curve sliding surface with 2 undetermined constants is a good choice to analyze shallow tunnel stability. Parameter analysis demonstrates that the horizontal semiaxis, acceleration, ground cohesion and homogeneity affect tunnel stability greatly, and the horizontal semiaxis, vertical semiaxis, tunnel depth and ground homogeneity have obvious influence on tunnel sliding surface. It concludes that the most applicable approaches to enhance tunnel stability are reducing the horizontal semiaxis, strengthening cohesion and setting the tunnel into good ground.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09c
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• pp.113-116
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• 2010

Ground cave-in is usually initiated by the formation of cavity within the ground due to soil loss. When the location of the cavity is deep in the ground, the detection of the cavity is not easy. Then it is possible that the hidden cavity expands for a long time to eventually cause sudden large-scale collapse. A case of large scale ground collapse in the old fill ground was studied and described in this paper. The underground cavity appeared to be caused by subsurface erosion deep in the ground and to expand/extend upward till it was ended by the catastrophic ground failure. It highlighted the importance of proper drainage work in a large scale land fill.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.785-791
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• 2023

Risk management is essential for preventing accidents arising from uncertainties in TBM tunnel projects, especially concerning managing the risk of TBM tunnel collapse, which can cause extensive damage from the tunnel face to the ground surface. In addition, prioritizing risks is necessary to allocate resources efficiently within time and cost constraints. Therefore, this study aimed to establish a TBM risk database through case studies of TBM accidents and determine a risk priority for TBM tunnel collapse using the Bayes theorem. The database consisted of 87 cases, dealing with three accidents and five geological sources. Applying the Bayes theorem to the database, it was found that fault zones and weak ground significantly increased the probability of tunnel collapse, while the other sources showed low correlations with collapse. Therefore, the risk priority for TBM tunnel collapse, considering geological sources, is as follows: 1) Fault zone, 2) Weak ground, 3) Mixed ground, 4) High in-situ stress, and 5) Expansive ground. In practice, the derived risk priority can serve as a valuable reference for risk management, enhancing the safety and efficiency of TBM construction. It provides guidance for developing appropriate countermeasure plans and allocating resources effectively to mitigate the risk of TBM tunnel collapse.