• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.421-427
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• 2017

Seismic safety evaluation of weir structure is significant considering the catastrophic economical consequence of operational disruption. In recent years, the seismic probabilistic risk assessment (SPRA) has been issued as a key area of research for the hydraulic system to mitigate and manage the risk. The aim of this paper is to assess the seismic probabilistic risk of weir structures employing the seismic hazard and the structural fragility in Korea. At the first stage, probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) approach is performed to extract the hazard curve at the weir site using the seismic and geological data. Thereafter, the seismic fragility that defines the probability of structural collapse is evaluated by using the incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) method in accordance with the four different design limit states as failure identification criteria. Consequently, by combining the seismic hazard and fragility results, the seismic risk curves are developed that contain helpful information for risk management of hydraulic structures. The tensile stress of the mass concrete is found to be more vulnerable than other design criteria. The hazard deaggregation illustrates that moderate size and far source earthquakes are the most likely scenario for the site. In addition, the annual loss curves for two different hazard source models corresponding to design limit states are extracted.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.101-108
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• 2019

The seismic safety of nuclear power plants has always been emphasized by the effects of accidents. In general, the seismic safety evaluation of nuclear power plants carries out a seismic probabilistic safety assessment. The current probabilistic safety assessment assumes that damage to the structure, system, and components (SSCs) occurs independently to each other or perfect dependently to each other. In case of earthquake events, the failure event occurs with the correlation due to the correlation between the seismic response of the SSCs and the seismic performance of the SSCs. In this study, the EEMS (External Event Mensuration System) code is developed which can perform the seismic probabilistic safety assessment considering correlation. The developed code is verified by comparing with the multiplier n, which is for calculating the joint probability of failure, which is proposed by Mankamo. It is analyzed the changes in seismic fragility curves and seismic risks with correlation. As a result, it was confirmed that the seismic fragility curves and seismic risk change according to the failure correlation coefficient. This means that it is important to select an appropriate failure correlation coefficient in order to perform a seismic probabilistic safety assessment. And also, it was confirmed that carrying out the seismic probabilistic safety assessment in consideration of the seismic correlation provides more realistic results, rather than providing conservative or non-conservative results comparing with that damage to the SSCs occurs independently.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.1420-1427
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• 2023

Seismic risk has received increased attention since the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan. The seismic risk of a nuclear power plant is evaluated via seismic probabilistic safety assessment (PSA), for which several methods are available. Recently, the discrete approach has become widely used. This approximates the seismic risk by discretizing the ground motion level interval into a small number of subintervals with the expectation of providing a conservative result. The present study examines the effect of the number of subintervals upon the results of seismic risk quantification. It is demonstrated that a small number of subintervals may lead to either an underestimation or overestimation of the seismic risk depending on the ground motion level. The present paper also provides a method for finding the boundaries between overestimation and underestimation regions, and illustrates the effect of the number of subintervals upon the seismic risk evaluation with an example. By providing a method for determining the effect of a small number of subintervals upon the results of seismic risk quantification, the present study will assist seismic PSA analysts to determine the appropriate number of subintervals and to better understand seismic risk quantification.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.53-58
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• 2021

Nuclear power plant's safety against seismic events is evaluated as risk values by probabilistic seismic safety assessment. The risk values vary by the seismic failure correlation between the structures, systems, and components (SSCs). However, most probabilistic seismic safety assessments idealized the seismic failure correlation between the SSCs as entirely dependent or independent. Such a consideration results in an inaccurate assessment result not reflecting real physical phenomenon. A nuclear power plant's seismic risk should be calculated with the appropriate seismic failure correlation coefficient between the SSCs for a reasonable outcome. An accident scenario that has an enormous impact on a nuclear power plant's seismic risk was selected. Moreover, the probabilistic seismic response analyses of a nuclear power plant were performed to derive appropriate seismic failure correlations between SSCs. Based on the analysis results, the seismic failure correlation coefficient between SSCs was derived, and the seismic fragility curve and core damage frequency of the loss of essential power event were calculated. Results were compared with the seismic fragility and core damage frequency of assuming the seismic failure correlations between SSCs were independent and entirely dependent.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.3
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• pp.317-326
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• 2019

This research aims to assess the tight seismic risk curve of the intake tower at Geumgwang reservoir by considering the recorded historical earthquake data in the Korean Peninsula. The seismic fragility, a significant part of risk assessment, is updated by using Bayesian inference to consider the uncertainties and computational efficiency. The reservoir is one of the largest reservoirs in Korea for the supply of agricultural water. The intake tower controls the release of water from the reservoir. The seismic risk assessment of the intake tower plays an important role in the risk management of the reservoir. Site-specific seismic hazard is computed based on the four different seismic source maps of Korea. Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) method is used to estimate the annual exceedance rate of hazard for corresponding Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA). Hazard deaggregation is shown at two customary hazard levels. Multiple dynamic analyses and a nonlinear static pushover analysis are performed for deriving fragility parameters. Thereafter, Bayesian inference with Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is used to update the fragility parameters by integrating the results of the analyses. This study proves to reduce the uncertainties associated with fragility and risk curve, and to increase significant statistical and computational efficiency. The range of seismic risk curve of the intake tower is extracted for the reservoir site by considering four different source models and updated fragility function, which can be effectively used for the risk management and mitigation of reservoir.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.473-480
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• 2006

Liquefaction of soil foundation is one of the major seismic damage types of infrastructures. In this paper, deterministic and probabilistic approaches for the evaluation of liquefaction potential are briefly summarized and the risk assessment method is newly proposed using seismic fragility and seismic hazard curves. Currently the deterministic approach is widely used to evaluate the liquefaction potential in Korea. However, the there are a certain degree of uncertainties in the soil properties such as elastic modulus and resistant capacity, therefore the probabilistic approach is more promising. Two types of probabilistic approach are introduced including (1) failure probability for a given design earthquake and (2) the seismic risk of liquefaction of soil for a given service life. The results from different methods show a similar trend, and the liquefaction potential can be more quantitatively evaluated using risk analysis method.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.661-668
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• 2019

Seismic vulnerability assessment is a useful tool for rational safety analysis and planning of large and complex structural systems; it can deal with the effects of uncertainties on the performance of significant structural systems. In this study, an efficient dynamic reliability approach, probability density evolution methodology (PDEM), is proposed for seismic vulnerability analysis of earth dams. The PDEM provides the failure probability of different limit states for various levels of ground motion intensity as well as the mean value, standard deviation and probability density function of the performance metric of the earth dam. Combining the seismic reliability with three different performance levels related to the displacement of the earth dam, the seismic fragility curves are constructed without them being limited to a specific functional form. Furthermore, considering the seismic fragility analysis is a significant procedure in the seismic probabilistic risk assessment of structures, the seismic vulnerability results obtained by the dynamic reliability approach are combined with the results of probabilistic seismic hazard and seismic loss analysis to present and address the PDEM-based seismic probabilistic risk assessment framework by a simulated case study of an earth dam.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.91-99
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• 2019

Fragility analysis is an effective tool that is frequently used for seismic risk assessment of bridges. There are three different approaches to derive a fragility curve: experimental, empirical and analytical. Both experimental and empirical methods to derive fragility curve are based on past earthquake reports and expert opinions which are not suitable for all bridges. Therefore, analytical fragility analysis becomes important. Nonlinear time history analysis is commonly used which is the most reliable method for determining probabilistic demand models. In this study, to determine the probabilistic demand models of bridges, time history analyses were performed considering both material and geometrical nonlinearities. Serviceability limit states for three different service velocities were considered as a performance goal. Also, support displacements, component yielding and collapse limits were taken into account. Both serviceability and component fragility were derived by using maximum likely hood methods. Finally, the seismic performance and critical members of the bridge were probabilistically determined and clearly presented.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.967-973
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• 2021

In 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing simultaneous accidents in several reactors. This accident shows us that if there are several reactors on site, the seismic risk to multiple units is important to consider, in addition to that to single units in isolation. When a seismic event occurs, a seismic-failure correlation exists between the nuclear power plant's structures, systems, and components (SSCs) due to their seismic-response and seismic-capacity correlations. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the multi-unit seismic risk by considering the SSCs' seismic-failure-correlation effect. In this study, a methodology is proposed to obtain the seismic-response-correlation coefficient between SSCs to calculate the risk to multi-unit facilities. This coefficient is calculated from a probabilistic multi-unit seismic-response analysis. The seismic-response and seismic-failure-correlation coefficients of the emergency diesel generators installed within the units are successfully derived via the proposed method. In addition, the distribution of the seismic-response-correlation coefficient was observed as a function of the distance between SSCs of various dynamic characteristics. It is demonstrated that the proposed methodology can reasonably derive the seismic-response-correlation coefficient between SSCs, which is the input data for multi-unit seismic probabilistic safety assessment.

• 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.02b
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• pp.13-24
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• 2009

This paper introduces various kinds of applications of the scenario-based seismic risk assessment in Taiwan. Seismic scenario simulation (SSS) is a GIS-based technique to assess distribution of ground shaking intensity, soil liquefaction probability, building damages and associated casualties, interruption of lifeline systems, economic losses, etc. given source parameters of an earthquake. The SSS may integrate with rapid earthquake information release system to obtain valuable information and to assist in decision-making processes to dispatch rescue and medical resources efficiently. The SSS may also integrate with probabilistic seismic hazard analysis to evaluate various kinds of risk estimates, such as average annual loss and probable maximum loss in one event, in a probabilistic sense and to help proposing feasible countermeasures.