• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.667-673
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• 2010

The near fault ground motion (NFGM) is characterized by a single long period velocity pulse with large magnitude. NFGMs have been observed in recent strong earthquakes, Northridge (1994), Japan Kobe (1995), Turkey Izmit (1999), China Sichuan (2008), Haiti (2010) etc. These strong earthquakes have caused considerable damage to infrastructures because the epicenter was close to the urban area, called as NFGM. Extensive research for the far field ground motion (FFGM) have been carried out in strong seismic region, but limited research have been done for NFGM in low or moderate seismic regions because of very few records. The purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze the seismic response of reinforced concrete bridge piers subjected to near-fault ground motions. The seismic performance of six RC bridge piers depending on three confinement steel ratios and three superstructure mass was investigated on the shaking table. From these experimental results, it was confirmed that the reduction of seismic performance was observed for test specimens with lower confinement steel ratio or more deck weight. The displacement ductility of RC bridge piers in terms of the stiffness degradation is proposed based on test results the shaking table.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.395-402
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• 2018

Floor location of adjacent buildings may be different in terms of height elevation, and thus, the slab may hit on the columns of adjacent insufficiently separated buildings during severe ground motions. Such impacts, often referred to as mid-column pounding, can be catastrophic. Substantial pounding damage or even total collapse of structures was often observed in large amount of adjacent low rise buildings. The research on the mid-column pounding between low rise buildings is in urgency need. In present study, the responses of two adjacent low rise buildings with unequal heights and different dynamic properties have been analyzed. Parametric studies have also been conducted to assess the influence of story height difference, gap distance and input direction of ground motion on the effect of structural pounding response. Another emphasis of this study is to analyze the near-fault effect, which is important for the structures located in the near-fault area. The analysis results show that collisions exhibit significant influence on the local shear force response of the column suffering impact. Because of asymmetric configuration of systems, the structural seismic behavior is distinct by varying the incident directions of the ground motions. Results also show that near-fault earthquakes induced ground motions can cause more significant effect on the pounding responses.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.349-365
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• 2020

Since the peak seismic response of a base-isolated building strongly depends on the characteristics of the imposed seismic ground motion, the behavior of a base-isolated building under different seismic ground motions is studied, in order to better assess their effects on its peak seismic response. Specifically, the behavior of a typical steel building is examined as base-isolated with elastomeric bearings, while the effect of near-fault ground motions is studied by imposing 7 pairs of near- and 7 pairs of far-fault seismic records, from the same 7 earthquake events, to the building, under 3 different loading combinations, through three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear dynamic analyses, conducted with SAP2000. The results indicate that near-fault seismic components are more likely to increase the building's peak seismic response than the corresponding far-fault components. Furthermore, the direction of the imposed earthquake excitations is also varied by rotating the imposed pairs of seismic records from 0◦ to 360◦, with respect to the major construction axes. It is observed that the peak seismic responses along the critical incident angles, which in general differ from the major horizontal construction axes of the building, are significantly higher. Moreover, the influence of 5% and 10% accidental mass eccentricities is also studied, revealing that when considering accidental mass eccentricities the peak relative displacements of the base isolated building at the isolation level are substantially increased, while the peak floor accelerations and interstory drifts of its superstructure are only slightly affected.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.191-200
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• 2017

In this paper, the seismic performance of reinforced concrete braced frames (RC-BF) under far- and near-fault motions was investigated. Four-, eight-, 12- and 16-story RC-BFs were designed on the basis of a code-design method for a high risk seismic zone. Nonlinear static and dynamic analyses of the frames have been performed using OpenSees software. To consider diverse characteristics of near-fault motions, records with forward-directivity and fling-step effects were employed. From the results obtained in the analytical study it is concluded that the used design method was reasonable and the mean maximum drift of the frames under all ground motion sets were in acceptable range. For intermediate- and high-rise buildings the near-fault motions imposed higher demands than far-faults.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.53-64
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• 2010

Seismic fragility curves of structures represent the probability of exceeding the prescribed structural damage state for a given various levels of ground motion intensity, such as peak ground acceleration (PGA). This means that seismic fragility curves are essential to the evaluation of structural seismic performance and assessments of risk. Most of existing studies have not considered the near- and far-fault earthquake effect on the seismic fragility curves. In order to evaluate the effect of near- and far-fault earthquakes, seismic fragility curves for PSC box girder bridges subjected to near- and far-fault earthquakes are calculated and compared. The seismic fragility curves are strongly dependent on the earthquake characteristics such as fault distance. This paper suggests that the effect of near- and far-fault earthquakes on seismic fragility curves of PSC box girder bridge structure should be considered.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.243-251
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• 2018

The dynamic responses of a rocking wall-moment frame (RWMF) with a post-tensioned cable are investigated. The nonlinear equations of motions are developed, which can be categorized as a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) model. The model is validated through comparison of the rocking response of the rigid rocking wall (RRW) and displacement of the moment frame (MF) against that obtained from Finite Element analysis when subjected ground motion excitation. A comprehensive parametric analysis is carried out to determine the seismic performance factors of the RWMF systems under near-fault trigonometric pulse excitation. The horizontal displacement of the RWMF system is compared with that of MF structures without RRW, revealing the damping effect of the RRW. Frame displacement spectra excited by trigonometric pulses and recorded earthquake ground motions are constructed. The effects of pulse type, mass ratio, frame stiffness, and wall slenderness variations on the displacement spectra are presented. The paper shows that the coupling with a RRW has mixed results on suppressing the maximum displacement response of the frame.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.373-387
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• 2018

Semi-active isolation systems based on leverage-type stiffness control strategies have been widely studied. The main concept behind this type of system is to adjust the stiffness in the isolator to match the fundamental period of the isolated system by using a simple leverage mechanism. Although this system achieves high performance under far-field earthquakes, it is unsuitable for near-fault strong ground motion. To overcome this problem, this study considers the potential energy effect in the control law of the semi-active isolation system. The minimal energy weighting (MEW) between the potential energy and kinetic energy was first optimized through a series of numerical simulations. Two MEW algorithms, namely generic and near-fault MEW control, were then developed to efficiently reduce the structural displacement responses. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed method, a two-degree-of-freedom structure was employed as a benchmark. Numerical results indicate that the dynamic response of the structure can be effectively dampened by the proposed MEW control under both far-field and near-fault earthquakes, whereas the structural responses resulting from conventional control methods may be greater than those for the purely passive control method. Moreover, according to experimental verifications, both the generic and near-fault MEW control modes yielded promising results under impulse-like earthquakes. The practicability of the proposed control algorithm was verified.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.25-31
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• 2007

For areas such as the Korean Peninsula, which have moderate seismic activity but no available records of strong ground motion, synthetic seismograms can be used to evaluate ground motion without waiting for a strong earthquake. Such seismograms represent the estimated ground motions expected from a set of possible earthquake scenarios. Local site effects are especially important in assessing the seismic hazard and possible ground motion scenarios for a specific fault. The earthquake source and rupture dynamics can be described as a two-step process of rupture initiation and front propagation controlled by a frictional sliding mechanism. The seismic wavefield propagates through heterogeneous geological media and finally undergoes near-surface modulations such as amplification or deamplification. This is a complex system in which various scales of physical phenomena are integrated. A unified approach incorporates multi-scale problems of dynamic rupture, radiated wave propagation, and site effects into an all-in-one model using a three-dimensional, fourth-order, staggered-grid, finite-difference method. The method explains strong ground motions as products of complex systems that can be modified according to a variety of fine-scale rupture scenarios and friction models. A series of such deterministic earthquake scenarios can shed light on the kind of damage that would result and where it would be located.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2000

단층에 근접한 지진동에 대하여 성능이 저하되는 단자유도계의 변위응답에 대하여 연구하였다 5% 의 감쇠비를 갖는 세단계의 성능저하시스템을 5개의 단층에 근접한 지진동에 대하여 해석하였다 해석결과로부터 성능저하시스템의 비탄성 변위응답은 비저하시스템에 비하여 큰 값을 나타냄을 알 수 있었다 또한 성능저하 특성이 증가할수록 변위응답은 커지는 경향이 있다 이러한 변위증폭은 구조물의 고유주기 강도와 성능저하특성에 영향을 받으며 짧은 주기영역에서는 큰 값을 나타내며 긴 주기영역에서는 변위증폭이 거의 발생하지 않는다 단층에 근접한 각각의 지진동에 대한 변위증폭의 최대값은 1초 보다 작은 주기영역에서 비저하시스템의 4배 정도이다 변위증폭계수의 평균값은 짧은 주기영역에서는 2의 값을 가지면 구조물의 고유주기가 길어질수록 1에 수렴해 감을 알 수 있었다.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.66 no.5
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• pp.637-648
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• 2018

When the centers of mass and stiffness of a building do not coincide, the structure experiences torsional responses. Such systems can consist of the underlying soil and the super-structure. The underlying soil may modify the earthquake input motion and change structural responses. Specific effects of the input motion shall also not be ignored. In this study, seismic demands of asymmetric buildings considering soil-structure interaction (SSI) under near-fault ground motions are evaluated. The building is modeled as an idealized single-story structure. The soil beneath the building is modeled by non-linear finite elements in the two states of loose and dense sands both compared with the fixed-base state. The infinite boundary conditions are modelled using viscous boundary elements. The effects of traditional and yield displacement-based (YDB) approaches of strength and stiffness distributions are considered on seismic demands. In the YDB approach, the stiffness considered in seismic design depends on the strength. The results show that the decrease in the base shear considering soft soil induced SSI when the YDB approach is assumed results only in the center of rigidity to control torsional responses. However, for fixed-base structures and those on dense soils both centers of strength and rigidity are controlling.