• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 1990

The safety of concrete nuclear containment structures should be secured against all kinds of loading due to various natural disasters or extraordinary accidental loads. The current design criteria of concrete containment structures are not based on the reliabillty-based design concept but rely on the conventional design concept. In this paper, a probabillty-based reliability analysis were proposed based on a FEM-based random vibration analysis and serviceability limit state of structures. The limit state model defined for the study is a serviceability limit state in terms of the more realistic crack failure that might cause the emission of radioactive materials, and the results are compared with those of the strength limit state. More accurate reliability analyses under various dynamic loads such as earthquake loads were made possible by incorporation the FEM and random vibration theory, which is different from the conventional reliability analysis method. The uncertainties in loads and resistance available in Korea and the refernces were adapted to the situation of Korea, and especially in the case of earthquake, the design earthquake was assessed based on the available re ports on probabilistic description of earthquake ground acceleration in the Korea peninsula.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.97-115
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• 2024

In this paper, a database consisting of the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio test data of clay obtained from 406 groups of triaxial tests is constructed with the starting area of Xiong'an New Area as the research background. The aim is to study the nonlinear dynamic properties of clay in this area under cyclic loading. The study found that the effective confining pressure and plasticity index have certain influences on the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio of clay in this area. Through data analysis, it was found that there was a certain correlation between effective confining pressure and plasticity index and dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio, with fitting degree values greater than 0.1263 for both. However, other physical indices such as the void ratio, natural density, water content and specific gravity have only a small effect on the dynamic shear modulus ratio and the damping ratio, with fitting degree values of less than 0.1 for all of them. This indicates that it is important to consider the influence of effective confining pressure and plasticity index when studying the nonlinear dynamic properties of clays in this area. Based on the above, prediction models for the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio in this area were constructed separately. The results showed that the model that considered the combined effect of effective confining pressure and plasticity index performed best. The predicted dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio closely matched the actual curves, with approximately 88% of the data falling within ±1.3 times the measured dynamic shear modulus ratio and approximately 85.1% of the data falling within ±1.3 times the measured damping ratio. In contrast, the prediction models that considered only a single influence deviated from the actual values, particularly the model that considered only the plasticity index, which predicted the dynamic shear modulus ratio and the damping ratio within a small distribution range close to the average of the test values. When compared with existing prediction models, it was found that the predicted dynamic shear modulus ratio in this paper was slightly higher, which was due to the overall hardness of the clay in this area, leading to a slightly higher determination of the dynamic shear modulus ratio by the prediction model. Finally, for the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio of the engineering site in the starting area of Xiong'an New Area, we confirm that the prediction formulas established in this paper have high reliability and provide the applicable range of the prediction model.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.33-42
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• 2004

The usual practice of placing viscoelastic dampers (VED) in the inter-story of building structures frequently interfere with spatial planning and obstruct internal view. These shortcomings can be overcome by installing VED in seismic joints or in expansion joints which are usually hidden under a cover. This study investigates the effect of installing VED in seismic joints to reduce earthquake-induced dynamic reponses. Parametric studies were conducted using 3-DOF systems connected by VED and subjected to earthquake excitations to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Nonlinear dynamic analyses were carried out with five-story structures composed of different structure systems and connected by seismic joints. According to the analysis results the use of VED in seismic joints turned out to be effective as long as the natural frequencies of the connected structures are different enough.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.53-63
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• 2007

Seismic design codes are developed mainly based on the observation of the behavior of structures in the high seismicity regions where structures may experience significant amount of inelastic deformations and major earthquakes may result in structural damages in a vast area. Therefore, seismic loads are reduced in current design codes for building structures using response modification factors which depend on the ductility capacity and overstrength of a structural system. However, structures in low seismicity regions, subjected to a minor earthquake, will behave almost elastically because of the larger overstrength of structures in low seismicity regions such as Korea. Structures in low seismicity regions may have longer periods since they are designed to smaller seismic loads and main target of design will be minor or moderate earthquakes occurring nearby. Ground accelerations recorded at stations near the epicenter may have somewhat different response spectra from those of distant station records. Therefore, it is necessary to verify if the seismic design methods based on high seismicity would he applicable to low seismicity regions. In this study, the adequacy of design spectra, period estimation and response modification factors are discussed for the seismic design in low seismicity regions. The response modification factors are verified based on the ductility and overstrength of building structures estimated from the farce-displacement relationship. For the same response modification factor, the ductility demand in low seismicity regions may be smaller than that of high seismicity regions because the overstrength of structures may be larger in low seismicity regions. The ductility demands in example structures designed to UBC97 for high, moderate and low seismicity regions were compared. Demands of plastic rotation in connections were much lower in low seismicity regions compared to those of high seismicity regions when the structures are designed with the same response modification factor. Therefore, in low seismicity regions, it would be not required to use connection details with large ductility capacity even for structures designed with a large response modification factor.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.463-468
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• 2007

Some network equipments made in Korea were exposed to severe earthquake in Japan several years ago. More than a hundred slim base transfer network stations had been seized with the severe earthquake at Nigata and it was reported that less than fifteen sets showed blackout by interruption of electricity, not by the structural failure. The purpose of this paper is to check the structural safety of the network equipments by performing table test, and the static and dynamic finite element analysis. For the dynamic test, the station weighing 200 kg was subjected to the Zone 3 earthquake loading of GR-63-CORE on the shaking table to obtain the dynamic responses to compare with the analysis results. It is shown that the FE analysis results are a little bit larger than that of the experimental values. And the sensitivity analysis and optimization for the natural frequency is performed and it is found that the first natural frequency is sensitive to small design change as shown in the results. And the dynamic response of optimized design is less than the original design.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.39-50
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• 2009

In this paper, a method for reducing seismic responses of adjacent buildings is studied that involves connecting two buildings with energy-dissipating devices, such as MR dampers. For the vibration control of the adjacent buildings, a fuzzy control technique with semi-active MR dampers is proposed. A fuzzy controller, which can appropriately modulate the damping forces by controlling the input voltage in real time, is designed according to the proposed method. To verify the validity of the proposed method, numerical simulations are performed. In the numerical simulations, historical earthquake records with diverse frequency contents and different peak values are used. For the purpose of comparison, an uncontrolled system, a passive control system and a semi-active fuzzy control system are considered. The comparative results prove the effectiveness of the proposed control technique, i.e. the numerical results show that the fuzzy controlled semi-active MR dampers can effectively reduce the earthquake responses of the adjacent structures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.377-386
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• 2017

Earthquake-induced pounding damages to building structures were repeatedly observed in many previous major earthquakes. Extensive researches have been carried out in this field. Previous studies mainly focused on the regular shaped buildings and each building was normally simplified as a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system or a multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) system by assuming the masses of the building lumped at the floor levels. The researches on the pounding responses between irregular asymmetric buildings are rare. For the asymmetric buildings subjected to earthquake loading, torsional vibration modes of the structures are excited, which in turn may significantly change the structural responses. Moreover, contact element was normally used to consider the pounding phenomenon in previous studies, which may result in inaccurate estimations of the structural responses since this method is based on the point-to-point pounding assumption with the predetermined pounding locations. In reality, poundings may take place between any locations. In other words, the pounding locations cannot be predefined. To more realistically consider the arbitrary poundings between asymmetric structures, detailed three-dimensional (3D) finite element models (FEM) and arbitrary pounding algorithm are necessary. This paper carries out numerical simulations on the pounding responses between a symmetric rectangular-shaped building and an asymmetric L-shaped building by using the explicit finite element code LS-DYNA. The detailed 3D FEMs are developed and arbitrary 3D pounding locations between these two buildings under bi-directional earthquake ground motions are investigated. Special attention is paid to the relative locations of two adjacent buildings. The influences of the left-and-right, fore-and-aft relative locations and separation gap between the two buildings on the pounding responses are systematically investigated.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.443-460
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• 2024

This study develops Titanium (Ti) and Magnesium (Mg)-based nano-alloys to enhance the earthquake resilience of steel structures using machine learning (SVM) and sensor technology. Embedding Ti and Mg into steel at the nanoscale creates a lightweight, durable, and flexible material capable of withstanding seismic forces. Ti enhances tensile strength and flexibility, while Mg reduces weight, lowering seismic loads on buildings. The performance of these nano-alloys was assessed through shake table tests, cyclic load testing, and dynamic response testing, showing that nano-alloy-enhanced steel structures experienced 60% less displacement and 40% lower acceleration than traditional steel, demonstrating superior energy absorption and stress distribution. Fatigue tests revealed that the nano-alloy could endure 20,000 loading cycles, outperforming the 8,000 cycles of conventional steel. Integrated sensor technology, including strain gauges and accelerometers, provided real-time stress and deformation data, confirming the material's effectiveness in stress distribution and vibration damping. The SVM model optimized alloy composition, achieving 94% prediction accuracy in assessing seismic performance, highlighting the nano-alloys' durability and resilience. This study suggests that Ti and Mg nano-alloys could greatly improve earthquake-resistant construction.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.3 s.55
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• pp.53-62
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• 2007

This paper presents a new vibration control method for long-span bridges using complex damper system. The new system presents simple mechanical configuration with oil and elasto-plastic dampers which have velocity and displacement dependency in vibration energy absorbing. This system can produce various damping forces according to the applied external forces by the velocity and displacement-dependent characteristics of the dampers. The oil damper dissipates vibration energy for relatively frequent and small amplitude like in the case for small to moderate earthquakes, whereas the elasto-plastic damper system works for rare and large amplitude vibration such as high seismic excitation. Thus, the proposed system exhibits the advantage of low cost with high performance since the roles of the two different dampers are effectively separated. A numerical model is established for the complex damper system, and the response characteristics and effectiveness of the proposed system are presented through numerical simulations. Numerical results show that the proposed complex damper system can significantly improve the seismic performance of long-span bridge structures with much more effective damping mechanism than single conventional passive damper systems.

• Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.241-252
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• 1998

The objective of the research stated herein is to observe the actual responses of a low-rise nonseismic moment-resisting reinforced concrete frame subjected to varied levels of earthquake ground motions. First, the reduction scale for the model was determined as 1 : 5 considering the capacity of the shaking table to be used and the model was manufactured according to the similitude law. This model was, then, subjected to the shaking table motions simulating Taft N21E component earthquake ground motions, whose peak ground accelations (PGAs) were modified to 0.12g, 0.2g, 0.3g, and 0.4g. The lateral accelerations and displacements at each story and local deformations at the critical reginos of the structure were measured. The base shear was measured by using self-made load cells. Before and after each earthquake simulation test, free vibration tests were performed to find the change in the natural period and damping ratio of the model. The test data on the global and local behaviors are interpreted. The model showed the linear elastic behavior under the Taft N21E motion with the PGA if 0.12g, which represents the design earthquake in Korea. The maximum base shear was 1.8tf, approximately 4.7 times the design base shear. The model revealed fairly good resistance to the higher level of earthquake simulation tests. The main components of its resistance to the high level of earthquakes appeared to be 1) the high overstrength, 2) the elongation of the fundamental period, and 3) the minor energy dissipation by inelastic deformations. The drifts of the model under these tests were approximately within the allowable limit.