• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.21 no.6
• /
• pp.597-605
• /
• 2008

The feasibility study of a newly proposed smart base isolation system employing magneto-rheological elastomers(MREs) has been carried out. MREs belong to a class of smart materials whose elastic modulus or stiffness can be adjusted by varying the magnitude of the magnetic field. The base isolation systems are considered as one of the most effective devices for vibration mitigation of civil engineering structures such as bridges and buildings in the event of earthquakes. The proposed base isolation system strives to enhance the performance of the conventional base isolation system by improving the robustness of the system wide stiffness range controllable of MREs, which improves the adaptability and helps in better vibration control. To validate the effectiveness of the MRE-based isolation system, an extensive numerical simulation study has been performed using both single-story and five-story building structures employing base isolated devices under several historical earthquake excitations. The results show that the proposed system outperformed the conventional system in reducing the responses of the structure in all the seismic excitations considered in the study.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.49-56
• /
• 2010

In this study, the control performance of a smart top-story isolation system for tall buildings subjected to wind excitation was investigated. To this end, a 77-story tall building structure was employed and wind loads obtained from wind tunnel test were used for numerical simulations. The top-story of an example structure is separated from the main structure by a smart base isolation system composed of friction pendulum systems (FPS) and MR dampers. The primary purpose of the smart top-story isolation system is to mitigate the dynamic responses of the main structure, but the excessive movement of the isolated top story may cause the unstableness of the building structure. Therefore, the skyhook control algorithm was used to effectively reduce both responses of the isolated top story and the main structure. The control performance of the proposed smart top-story isolation system was investigated in comparison with that of the passive top-story isolation system. It has been shown from numerical simulation results that the smart top-story isolation system can effectively reduce wind-induced responses of the example building structure compared to the passive top-story isolation system with reduction of the top-story movement.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.10 no.5
• /
• pp.481-494
• /
• 2007

Downbursts are transient phenomena that produce wind profiles that are distinctly different from synoptic boundary layers. Wind field data from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of isolated downburst-like impinging jets, are used to investigate structural loads of tall buildings due to these high intensity winds. The base shear forces and base moments of tall buildings of heights between 120 and 250 m produced by downburst winds of various scales are compared with the forces from the equivalent boundary layer gust winds, with matched 10-metre wind velocity. The wind profiles are mainly functions of the size of the downburst and the radial distance from the centre of the storm. Wind forces due to various downburst profiles are investigated by placing the building at different locations relative to the storm center as well as varying the size of the downburst. Overall it is found that downbursts larger than approx. 2,000 m in diameter might produce governing design wind loads above those from corresponding boundary layer winds for tall buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.667-675
• /
• 2020

The current study compares the effect of structure-soil-structure interaction (SSSI) on the dynamic responses of adjacent buildings and isolated structures including soil-structure interaction (SSI) with the responses of fixed-base structures. Structural responses such as the relative acceleration, displacement, drift and shear force were considered under earthquake ground motion excitation. For this purpose, 5-, 10- and 15-story structures with 2-bay moment resisting frames resting on shallow foundations were modeled as a group of buildings in soft soil media. Viscous lateral boundaries and interface elements were applied to the soil model to simulate semi-infinite soil media, frictional contact and probable slip under seismic excitation. The direct method was employed for fully nonlinear time-history dynamic analysis in OpenSees using 3D finite element soil-structure models with different building positions. The results showed that the responses of the grouped structures were strongly influenced by the adjacent structures. The responses were as much as 4 times greater for drift and 2.3 times greater for shear force than the responses of fixed-base models.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.53-59
• /
• 2013

Several researches have been studied to enhance the seismic performance of nuclear power plants (NPPs) by application of seismic isolation. If a seismic base isolation system is applied to NPPs, seismic performance of nuclear power plants should be reevaluated considering the soil-structure interaction effect. The seismic fragility analysis method has been used as a quantitative seismic safety evaluation method for the NPP structures and equipment. In this study, the seismic performance of an isolated NPP is evaluated by seismic fragility curves considering the soil-structure interaction effect. The designed seismic isolation is introduced to a containment building of Shin-Kori NPP which is KSNP (Korean Standard Nuclear Power Plant), to improve its seismic performance. The seismic analysis is performed considering the soil-structure interaction effect by using the linearized model of seismic isolation with SASSI (System for Analysis of Soil-Structure Interaction) program. Finally, the seismic fragility is evaluated based on soil-isolation-structure interaction analysis results.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
• /
• 2005.11a
• /
• pp.241-246
• /
• 2005

The objective of this study is to develop a rule-based fault detection and diagnosis algorithm and an experimental verification using air handling unit. To develop an analytical algorithm which precisely detects a faulted component, energy equations at each control volume of AHU were applied. An experimental verification was conducted in the AHU at Green Building in KIER. In the experiment conducted in hot summer condition, the rule based FDD algorithm isolated a faulted sensor from HVAC components.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.17 no.3_4
• /
• pp.331-346
• /
• 2004

A new sensor system is proposed for measuring damage indexes. The damage index is a physical value that is well correlated to a critical damage in a device or a structure. The mechanism proposed here utilizes elastic buckling of a thin wire and does not require any external power supply for memorizing the index. The mechanisms to detect peak strain, peak displacement, peak acceleration and cumulative deformation as examples of damage indexes are presented. Furthermore, passive and active wireless data retrieval mechanisms using electromagnetic induction are proposed. The passive wireless system is achieved by forming a closed LC circuit to oscillate at its natural frequency. The active wireless sensor can transmit the data much further than the passive system at the sacrifice of slightly complicated electric circuit for the sensor. For wireless data retrieval, no wire is needed for the sensor to supply electrical power. For the active system, electrical power is supplied to the sensor by radio waves emitted from the retrieval system. Thus, external power supply is only needed for the retrieval system when the retrieval becomes necessary. Theoretical and experimental studies to show excellent performance of the proposed sensor are presented. Finally, a prototype damage index sensor installed into a 7 storey base-isolated building is explained.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.4 no.6
• /
• pp.795-807
• /
• 2008

A challenging problem in structural damage detection based on vibration data is the requirement of a large number of sensors and the numerical difficulty in obtaining reasonably accurate results when the system is large. To address this issue, the substructure identification approach may be used. Due to practical limitations, the response data are not available at all degrees of freedom of the structure and the external excitations may not be measured (or available). In this paper, an adaptive damage tracking technique, referred to as the sequential nonlinear least-square estimation with unknown inputs and unknown outputs (SNLSE-UI-UO) and the sub-structure approach are used to identify damages at critical locations (hot spots) of the complex structure. In our approach, only a limited number of response data are needed and the external excitations may not be measured, thus significantly reducing the number of sensors required and the corresponding computational efforts. The accuracy of the proposed approach is illustrated using a long-span truss with finite-element formulation and an 8-story nonlinear base-isolated building. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach is capable of tracking the local structural damages without the global information of the entire structure, and it is suitable for local structural health monitoring.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.65-74
• /
• 2019

This study presents the optimal isolation period according to the number of vertically expended stories in order to provide the basic data for the application of the seismic isolation system in the vertically expended remodeling of the aged apartment. As a result of the structural analysis, the isolation period should be at least twice the primary structure in three-story vertical expansion, three times in two-story expansion, and four times in one-story expansion for the effective application of the isolation system. On the basis of the result, the efficacy of an isolation system for the actual apartment structure, which is three-story vertically expended, was analytically verified. The maximal acceleration response on the top floor reduced by 70% and 65% of the non-isolated structure in the X and Y directions respectively. Additionally, the base shear force decreased by 30% in the both directions, compared to the non-isolated structure.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.450-457
• /
• 2018

Purpose: The evaluation of seismic performance of critical structures has been emerging a key issue in Korea, since a magnitude 5.8 earthquake, the worst in Koran history, struck Gyeongju, southern area in Korea on september 12th, 2016. In particular, the catastrophic failure of nonstructural components such as sprinkler piping systems can cause significant economic loss or loss of life during and after an earthquake. The nonstructural components can be more fragile than structural components in seismic behavior. Method: This study presents the seismic performance evaluation of fire protection piping system, using coupled building-piping system installed with Triple Friction Pendulum Bearings (TPBs). Kobe (Japan), Kocaeli (Turkey), and GyeongJu (Korea) were selected to consider the uncertainty of ground motions in this study. Result: In the simulation results, it was observed that the reduction of maximum displacements of the piping system with the TPBs' system was significant: Kobe, Kocaeli, and Gyeongju cases were 49%, 14.4% and 21.5%, respectively. Conclusion: Therefore, using seismically isolated system in a building-piping system can be more effective to reduce the seismic risk than a normally installed building-piping systems without TPBs in strong earthquakes.