• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 2009

The site effects relating to the amplification of ground motion under earthquake loading are strongly influenced by both the subsurface soil condition and geologic structure. In this study, the site effects at the Hongseong area in Korea were examined by both the site investigation including borehole drilling and in-situ seismic tests and the site visit for acquiring geologic information of ground surface. Subsurface of Hongseong area with a major instrumental earthquake event in 1978 is composed of weathered layers of a maximum of 45 m thickness overlying bedrock. A geotechnical information system based on GIS framework was implemented to effectively find out spatial geologic structure of study area and it indicated Hongseong is a shallow and wide shaped basin. Two-dimensional finite element (FE) analyses for a representative cross-section of the Hongseong area were performed to evaluate seismic site responses. From the results of seismic responses, it was observed that the ground motions were amplified during the propagation of shear waves through the soil layer overlying the bedrock and the duration of shaking near the basin edges was prolonged due to the surface waves generated by interactions of shear waves with basin geometry. Furthermore, one-dimensional FE seismic response analyses were additionally conducted for soil sites selected in the basin, and it gives similar results to the two-dimensional seismic responses at most locations in the basin with the exception of the locations near the basin edges, because the basin in this study is very shallow and wide.

• 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.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.6
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• pp.771-784
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• 2018

This study aims to investigate the stochastic response of isolated and non-isolated highway bridges subjected to spatially varying earthquake ground motion model. This model includes wave passage, incoherence and site response effects. The wave passage effect is examined by using various wave velocities. The incoherency effect is investigated by considering the Harichandran and Vanmarcke coherency model. The site response effect is considered by selecting homogeneous firm, medium and soft soil types where the bridge supports are constructed. The ground motion is described by power spectral density function and applied to each support point. Triple concave friction pendulum (TCFP) bearing which is more effective than other seismic isolation systems is used for seismic isolation. To implement seismic isolation procedure, TCFP bearing devices are placed at each of the support points of the deck. In the analysis, the bridge selected is a five-span featuring cast-in-place concrete box girder superstructure supported on reinforced concrete columns. Foundation supported highway bridge is regarded as three regions and compared its different situation in the stochastic analysis. The stochastic analyses results show that spatially varying ground motion has important effects on the stochastic response of the isolated and non-isolated bridges as long span structures.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.4 s.44
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• pp.29-42
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• 2005

Total 350 borehole profiles were selected from the database of borehole logs in Seoul, for the site-specific seismic evaluation at two 4km${\times}$4km plain areas. Equivalent-linear site response analyses for the selected 350 sites were conducted based on shear wave velocity (Vs) Profiles, which were determined from the N-Vs correlation established using borehole seismic testing results in the inland areas of Korea. Most sites were categorized as site classes C and D based on the mean Vs to 30 m in depth (Vs30) ranging from 250 to 550 m/s. The she periods of the plains in Seoul ranging between 0.1 and 0.4 sec were significantly lower than those of the western US, from which the site coefficients in Korea were derived. For plains in Seoul, the site coefficients, Fa's and Fv's specified in the Korean seismic design guide, underestimate the ground motion in short-period (0.1-0.5 sec) band and overestimate the ground motion in mid-period (0.4-2.0 sec) band, respectively, because ol the differences in the geotechnical conditions between Seoul and the western US, although the Fa's in several sites overestimate the motion due to the base Isolation effect resulted from the soft layer in soil deposit.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.23-35
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• 2006

Equivalent linear analysis is widely used in estimating local seismic site effects. The soil behavior in the analysis is often assumed to be rate-independent and is not influenced by the seismic loading frequency. Laboratory results, however, indicate that cohesive soil behavior is greatly influenced by the loading frequency. A new equivalent linear analysis method that accounts for the loading frequency dependent soil behavior is developed and used to perform a series of one dimensional site response analyses. Results indicate that while frequency dependent shear modulus has limited influence on computed site response, frequency dependent soil damping greatly filters out high frequency components of the ground motion and thus results in lower response.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.93-109
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• 2015

Based on the reconnaissance of buildings in Dujiangyan City during 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, China, structural damage characteristics and the spatial distribution of structural damage are investigated, and the possible reasons for the extraordinary features are discussed with consideration of the influence of urban historical evolution and spatial variation of earthquake motions. Firstly, the urban plan and typical characteristics of structural seismic damage are briefly presented and summarized. Spatial distribution of structural damage is then comparatively analyzed by classifying all surveyed buildings in accordance with different construction age, considering the influence of seismic design code on urban buildings. Finally, the influences of evolution of seismic design code, topographic condition, local site and distance from fault rupture on spatial distribution of structural damage are comprehensively discussed. It is concluded that spatial variation of earthquake motions, resulting from topography, local site effect and fault rupture, are very important factor leading to the extraordinary spatial distribution of building damage except the evolution of seismic design codes. It is necessary that the spatial distribution of earthquake motions should be considered in seismic design of structures located in complicated topography area and near active faults.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.609-623
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• 2020

This paper presents a displacement-based seismic design procedure for new structures with fluid viscous dampers and/or for existing structures, where these devices are required as a retrofit measure and damage control. To consider the non-proportional damping produced by these devices in a conventional modal spectral analysis, the effect of the fluid viscous dampers is approximated as the sum of a proportional damping matrix and a complementary matrix which is representative of non-proportional damping matrix. To illustrate the application of this procedure and evaluate the performance of structures designed with the procedure proposed, five regular plane frames: 8, 12, 17, 20 and 25-storey, and an 8-storey building are designed. The seismic demands used for design and validation were the records obtained at the SCT site during the 1985 Michoacan earthquake, and that of the 2017 Morelos - Puebla earthquake obtained at the Culhuacan site, both stations located on soft soil sites. To validate the procedure proposed, the performances and damage distributions used as design targets were compared with the corresponding results from the nonlinear step-by-step analyses of the designed structures subjected to the same seismic demands.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.255-263
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• 2014

In this paper, seismic fragility analysis of lightning arrester is performed using capacity spectrum method(CSM). Since seismic fragility analysis of structure with many structural members is required to calculate many inelastic responses for several tens or hundreds of ground motions, simple method such as CSM is more appropriate than response history analysis(RHA). In general, accuracy of seismic response evaluated by CSM is less than that by RHA. In order to increase accuracy of CSM, equivalent SDOF method and performance point calculation technique are applied to CSM. Seismic fragility method proposed by Shinozuka et al. is used. In order to evaluate site effect of ground motions on seismic fragility, 60 different site classification earthquakes are selected as input ground motions. From the seismic fragility curves of lightning arrester evaluated by CSM and RHA, it can be observed that the seismic fragility curves evaluated by CSM are very similar to those by RHA. Also, it can be observed that main seismic failure mode of lightning arrest is bushing breakage.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.103-109
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• 2009

The probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) calculates the probability of exceedance of a certain ground motion parameter within a finite period at a site of interest. PSHA is very robust in that it can account for the uncertainties in seismic source, wave passage effect, and seismic site effects and hence, it is the most widely used method in quantifying the future earthquake induced ground vibration. This paper evaluates the applicability of a new PSHA that is alleged to be able to reproduce the results of a conventional PSHA method, but generates a series of earthquake scenarios and corresponding ground motion time histories that are compatible with the scenarios. In the application, a 40,000 year period is simulated, during which 16,738 virtual earthquakes have occurred. The seismic hazard maps are generated from the outputs of the new PSHA. Comparisons with the maps generated by the conventional PSHA method demonstrated that the new PSHA can successfully reproduce the results of a conventional PSHA. The new PSHA may not be very meaningful in itself. However, the real advantage of the method is that it can be used to develop probabilisitic seismic site coefficients. The suite of generated ground motion time histories are used to develop probabilistic site coefficients in the companion paper.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.307-319
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• 2023

Ground fissures have a huge effect on the integrity of surface structures. In high-intensity ground fissure regions, however, land resource would be wasted and city building and economic development would be limited if the area avoiding principle was used. In view of this challenge, to reveal the seismic response and seismic failure characteristics of ground fissure sites, a shaking table test on model soil based on a 1:15 scale experiment was carried out. In the test, the spatial distribution characteristics of acceleration response and Arias intensity were obtained for a site exposed to earthquakes with different characteristics. Furthermore, the failure characteristics and damage evolution of the model soil were analyzed. The test results indicated that, with the increase in the earthquake acceleration magnitude, the crack width of the ground fissure enlarged from 0 to 5 mm. The soil of the hanging wall was characterized by earlier cracking and a higher abundance of secondary fissures at 45°. Under strong earthquakes, the model soil, especially the soil near the ground fissure, was severely damaged and exhibited reduced stiffness. As a result, its natural frequency also decreased from 11.41 Hz to 8.05 Hz, whereas the damping ratio increased from 4.8% to 9.1%. Due to the existence of ground fissure, the acceleration was amplified to nearly 0.476 m/s², as high as 2.38 times of the input acceleration magnitude. The maximum of acceleration and Arias intensity appeared at the fissure zone, which decreased from the main fissure toward both sides, showing hanging wall effects. The seismic intensity, duration and frequency spectrum all had certain effects on the seismic response of the ground fissure site, but their influence degrees were different. The seismic response of the site induced by the seismic wave that had richer low-frequency components and longer duration was larger. The discrepancies of seismic response between the hanging wall and the footwall declined obviously when the magnitude of the earthquake acceleration increased. The research results will be propitious to enhancing the utilizing ratio of the limited landing resource, alleviation of property damages and casualties, and provide a good engineering application foreground.