• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.9
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• pp.3361-3379
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• 2022

A nuclear power plant (NPP) piping is designed against low-frequency earthquakes. However, earthquakes that can occur at NPP sites in the eastern part of the United States, northern Europe, and Korea are high-frequency earthquakes. Therefore, this study conducts bi-directional shaking table tests on actual-scale NPP piping and studies the response characteristics of low- and high-frequency earthquake motions. Such response characteristics are analyzed by comparing several responses that occur in the piping. Also, based on the test results, a piping numerical analysis model is developed and validated. The piping seismic performance under high-frequency earthquakes is derived. Consequently, the high-frequency excitation caused a large amplification in the measured peak acceleration responses compared to the low-frequency excitation. Conversely, concerning relative displacements, strains, and normal stresses, low-frequency excitation responses were larger than high-frequency excitation responses. Main peak relative displacements and peak normal stresses were 60%-69% and 24%-49% smaller in the high-frequency earthquake response than the low-frequency earthquake response. This phenomenon was noticeable when the earthquake motion intensity was large. The piping numerical model simulated the main natural frequencies and relative displacement responses well. Finally, for the stress limit state, the seismic performance for high-frequency earthquakes was about 2.7 times greater than for low-frequency earthquakes.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.123-128
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• 2020

Analysis of the 2016 Gyeongju earthquake and the 2017 Pohang earthquake showed the characteristics of a typical high-frequency earthquake with many high-frequency components, short time strong motion duration, and large peak ground acceleration relative to the magnitude of the earthquake. Domestic nuclear power plants were designed and evaluated based on NRC's Regulatory Guide 1.60 design response spectrum, which had a great deal of energy in the low-frequency range. Therefore, nuclear power plants should carry out seismic verification and seismic performance evaluation of systems, structures, and components by reflecting the domestic characteristics of earthquakes. In this study, high-frequency amplification factors that can be used for seismic verification and seismic performance evaluation of nuclear power plant systems, structures, and equipment were analyzed. In order to analyze the high-frequency amplification factor, five sets of seismic time history were generated, which were matched with the uniform hazard response spectrum to reflect the characteristics of domestic earthquake motion. The nuclear power plant was subjected to seismic analysis for the construction of the Korean standard nuclear power plant, OPR1000, which is a reactor building, an auxiliary building assembly, a component cooling water heat exchanger building, and an essential service water building. Based on the results of the seismic analysis, a high-frequency amplification factor was derived upon the calculation of the floor response spectrum of the important locations of nuclear power plants. The high-frequency amplification factor can be effectively used for the seismic verification and seismic performance evaluation of electric equipment which are sensitive to high-frequency earthquakes.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.806-812
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• 2020

Purpose: This is aimed to evaluate the seismic fragility of curved bridge structure with I-shape girder subjected to 12 high frequency ground motions based on Gyeongju earthquake. Method: The linear elastic finite element model of curved bridge with I-Shape cross section was constructed and them linear elastic time history analyses were performed using the 12 artificial ground motions. Result: It was found that displacement response(LS1, LS2) was failed after PGA 0.1g and the stress response also showed failure after PGA 0.2g. Conclusion: The curved bridge with I-shape girder was sensitive to high frequency earthquakes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Rock Mechanics Conference
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• 1995.03a
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• pp.108-108
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• 1995

There are always some difficulties to discriminate artificial exlposions from micro-earthquakes, furthermore more difficulties to identify and determine decoupled explosions and/or multiple explosions from micro-earthquakes. In this study we use the synthetic seismogram of the in homogeneous models between the source and the observation station in order to find the source effect of the geological environment. We have found some source characteristics of the air-filled and/or water-filled cavity that we can hardly see P-n and S- waves arrivals and that the high frequency coda waves are well observed compared to the coupled explosions or earthquakes.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.254-260
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• 2011

We studied magnitude determination method using high-frequency energy radiation duration to calculate rapidly magnitude of large earthquakes that occurred around Japan. Fourteen earthquakes were analyzed using Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) data. We calculated duration of high-frequency energy radiation with 2~4 Hz band pass filter at each data and estimated magnitude. As a result, duration becomes longer as magnitude becomes larger and the magnitude estimated using regional earthquake data are similar to that using teleseismic data. Therefore when an earthquake occurs around Japan we will be able to estimate the magnitude in a relatively short time using KMA data and it may be possible to determine if the earthquake is large enough to produce tsunami.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.69-75
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• 2023

In Korea, most nuclear power plants were designed based on the design response spectrum of Regulatory Guide 1.60 of the NRC. However, in the case of earthquakes occurring in the country, the characteristics of seismic motions in Korea and the design response spectrum differed. The seismic motion in Korea had a higher spectral acceleration in the high-frequency range compared to the design response spectrum. The seismic capacity may be reduced when evaluating the seismic performance of the equipment with high-frequency earthquakes compared with what is evaluated by the design response spectrum for the equipment with a high natural frequency. Therefore, EPRI proposed the inelastic energy absorption factor for the equipment anchorage. In this study, the seismic performance of welding anchorage was evaluated by considering domestic seismic characteristics and EPRI's inelastic energy absorption factor. In order to reflect the characteristics of domestic earthquakes, the uniform hazard response spectrum (UHRS) of Uljin was used. Moreover, the seismic performance of the equipment was evaluated with a design response spectrum of R.G.1.60 and a uniform hazard response spectrum (UHRS) as seismic inputs. As a result, it was confirmed that the seismic performance of the weld anchorage could be increased when the inelastic energy absorption factor is used. Also, a comparative analysis was performed on the seismic capacity of the anchorage of equipment by the welding and the extended bolt.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.7_spc
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• pp.503-508
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• 2016

In this study, effectiveness of seismic retrofitting methods using passive damping devices was investigated through numerical analyses of short-period structures under earthquakes which have short-duration and high-frequency impulse characteristics similar to Geyongju earthquakes. Displacement spectra of elastic systems and ductility demand of inelastic systems were evaluated by increasing viscous or friction damping. The damping devices could reduce responses of the structures with shorter structural period than 0.2s. The earthquakes similar to impulse load did not induce the responses of the structures with longer period than 0.4s, and the effects of the damping devices which generates damping forces proportional to structural responses became insignificant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1345-1356
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• 2021

Damage to nuclear power plants causes human casualties and environmental disasters. There are electrical facilities that control safety-related devices in nuclear power plants, and seismic performance is required for them. The 2016 Gyeongju earthquake had many high-frequency components. Therefore, there is a high possibility that an earthquake involving many high frequency components will occur in South Korea. As such, it is necessary to examine the safety of nuclear power plants against an earthquake with many high-frequency components. In this study, the shaking table test of electrical facilities was conducted against the design earthquake for nuclear power plants with a large low-frequency components and an earthquake with a large high-frequency components. The response characteristics of the earthquake with a large high-frequency components were identified by deriving the amplification factors of the response through the shaking table test. In addition, safety of electrical facility against the two aforementioned types of earthquakes with different seismic characteristics was confirmed through limit-state seismic tests. The electrical facility that was performed to the shaking table test in this study was a motor control center (MCC).

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.143-162
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• 2019

Motivated by a simpler and more compact hybrid active tuned mass damper (ATMD) system with wide frequency spacing (i.e., high robustness) but not reducing the effectiveness using the least number of ATMD units, the active tuned tandem mass dampers (ATTMD) have been proposed to attenuate undesirable oscillations of structures under the ground acceleration. Likewise, it is expected that the frequency spacing of the ATTMD is comparable to that of the active multiple tuned mass dampers (AMTMD) or the multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMD). In accordance with the mode generalised system in the specific vibration mode being controlled (simply referred herein to as the structure), the closed-form expression of the dimensionless displacement variances has been derived for the structure with the attached ATTMD. The criterion for the optimum searching may then be determined as minimization of the dimensionless displacement variances. Employing the gradient-based optimization technique, the effects of varying key parameters on the performance of the ATTMD have been scrutinized in order to probe into its superiority. Meanwhile, for the purpose of a systematic comparison, the optimum results of two active tuned mass dampers (two ATMDs), two tuned mass dampers (two TMDs) without the linking damper, and the TTMD are included into consideration. Subsequent to work in the frequency domain, a real-time Simulink implementation of dynamic analysis of the structure with the ATTMD under earthquakes is carried out to verify the findings of effectiveness and stroke in the frequency domain. Results clearly show that the findings in the time domain support the ones in the frequency domain. The whole work demonstrates that ATTMD outperforms two ATMDs, two TMDs, and TTMD. Thereinto, a wide frequency spacing feature of the ATTMD is its highlight, thus deeming it a high robustness control device. Furthermore, the ATTMD system only needs the linking dashpot, thus embodying its simplicity.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.6
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• pp.651-666
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• 2020

In this study, the spatial variation mechanisms of large far-field earthquakes at engineering scales are first investigated with data from the 2008 Ms 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake. And a novel 'coherency cut-off frequency' is proposed to distinguish the spatial variations in ground motions in the low-frequency and high-frequency ranges. Then, a practical piecewise coherency model is developed to estimate and characterize the spatial variation in earthquake ground motions, including the effects of source-to-site distances, site conditions and neighboring topography on these variations. Four particular earthquake records from dense seismograph arrays are used to investigate values of the coherency cut-off frequency for different source-to-site distances. On the basis of this analysis, the model is established to simulate the spatial variations, whose parameters are suitable for both near- and far-field earthquake conditions. Simulations are conducted to validate the proposed model and method. The results show that compared to the existing models, the proposed model provides an effective method for simulating the spatial correlations of ground motions at local sites with known source-to-site distances.