• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.233-247
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• 2024

The damage to structures during an earthquake can be varied depending on the frequency characteristics of seismic waves and the geological properties of the ground. Therefore, considering such attributes in the design ground motions is crucial. The Korean seismic design standard (KDS 17 10 00) provides design response spectra for various ground classifications. If required for time-domain analysis, ground motion time series can be either selected and adjusted from motions recorded at rock sites in intraplate regions or artificially synthesized. Ground motion time series at soil sites should be obtained from site response analysis. However, in practice, selecting suitable ground motion records is challenging due to the overall lack of large earthquakes in intraplate regions, and artificially synthesized time series often leads to unrealistic responses of structures. As an alternative approach, this study provides a case study of generating ground motion time series based on the hybrid broadband ground motion simulation of selected scenario earthquakes at sites in the Nakdonggang delta region. This research is significant as it provides a novel method for generating ground motion time series that can be used in seismic design and response analysis. For large-magnitude earthquake scenarios close to the epicenter, the simulated response spectra surpassed the 1000-year design response spectra in some specific frequency ranges. Subsequently, the acceleration time series at each location were used as input motions to perform nonlinear 1D site response analysis through the PySeismoSoil Package to account for the site response characteristics at each location. The results of the study revealed a tendency to amplify ground motion in the mid to long-period range in most places within the study area. Additionally, significant amplification in the short-period range was observed in some locations characterized by a thin soil layer and relatively high shear wave velocity soil near the upper bedrock.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 2021

The design response spectrum presented in the seismic design standard reflects the characteristics of the tectonic environment at a site. However, since the design response spectrum does not represent the ground motion with a specific earthquake magnitude or distance, input ground motions for response history analysis need to be selected reasonably. It is appropriate to use observed ground motions recorded in Korea for the seismic design. However, recently recorded ground motions in the Gyeongju (2016) or Pohang (2017) earthquakes are not compatible with the design response spectrum. Therefore, it is necessary to convert the recorded ground motion in Korea to a model similar to the design response spectrum. In this study, several approaches to adjust the spectral acceleration level at each period range were tested. These are the intrinsic and scattering attenuation considering the earthquake environment, magnitude, distance change by the green function method, and a rupture propagation direction's directivity effect. Using these variables, the amplification ratio for the representative natural period was regressed. Finally, the optimum condition compatible with the design response spectrum was suggested, and the validation was performed by converting the recorded ground motion.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.6
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• pp.869-887
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• 2012

Ground motion scaling techniques are actively debated in the earthquake engineering community. Considerations such as what amplitude, over what period range and to what target spectrum are amongst the questions of practical importance. In this paper, the effect of various ground motion scaling approaches are explored using three reinforced concrete prototypical building models of 8, 12 and 20 stories designed to respond nonlinearly under a design level earthquake event in the seismically active Southern California region. Twenty-one recorded earthquake motions are selected using a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis and subsequently scaled using four different strategies. These motions are subsequently compared to spectrally compatible motions. The nonlinear response of a planar frameidealized building is evaluated in terms of plasticity distribution, floor level acceleration and uncorrelated acceleration amplification ratio distributions; and interstory drift distributions. The most pronounced response variability observed in association with the scaling method is the extent of higher mode participation in the nonlinear demands.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

Seismic ground response evaluation is one of the main issues in geotechnical earthquake engineering. These analyses are subsequently divided into one-, two- and three-dimensional methods, and each of which can perform in time or frequency domain. In this study, a novel approach is proposed to assess the seismic site response using two-dimensional transfer functions in frequency domain analysis. Using the proposed formulation, a program is written in MATLAB environment and then promoted utilizing the equivalent linear approach. The accuracy of the written program is evaluated by comparing the obtained results with those of actual recorded data in the Gilroy region during Loma Prieta (1989) and Coyote Lake (1979) earthquakes. In order to precise comparison, acceleration time histories, Fourier amplitude spectra and acceleration response spectra diagrams of calculated and recorded data are presented. The proposed 2D transfer function diagrams are also obtained using mentioned earthquakes which show the amount of amplification or attenuation of the input motion at different frequencies while passing through the soil layer. The results of the proposed method confirm its accuracy and efficiency to evaluate ground motion during earthquakes using two-dimensional model. Then, studies on irregular topographies are carried out, and diagrams of amplification factors are shown.

• 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.1 no.1
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• pp.25-29
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• 1997

Amplication factor spectrum, using the observed strong ground motions database, has been obtained and compared with Standard Response Spectrum. The observed ground motions from the Miramichi, Nohanni, Sagueray and New Madrid Earthquake (19 vertical components, 36 horizontal components), which are estimated to represent domestic seismotectonic characteristics such as seismic sources, attenuation, and site effect, are used for the analysis of amplification factor spectrum. Amplication factors have been calculated by comparing the observed peak ground motions with results form responses to the observed horizontal and vertical ground motions. The comparison shows that the amplification factors resultant from this study exceed those of Standard Response Spectrum of relatively higher frequencies. The result implles that the characteristics of the seismic strong ground motion, which may represent the domestic seismotectonic characteristics differ from of standard Response Spectrum, especillay of higher frequencies.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.557-566
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• 2019

The evaluation of the seismic hazard for a given site is to estimate the seismic ground motion at the surface. This is the result of the combination of the action of the seismic source, which generates seismic waves, the propagation of these waves between the source and the site, and site local conditions. The aim of this work is to evaluate the sensitivity of dynamic response of extended structures to spatial variable ground motions (SVGM). All factors of spatial variability of ground motion are considered, especially local site effect. In this paper, a method is presented to simulate spatially varying earthquake ground motions. The scheme for generating spatially varying ground motions is established for spatial locations on the ground surface with varying site conditions. In this proposed method, two steps are necessary. Firstly, the base rock motions are assumed to have the same intensity and are modelled with a filtered Tajimi-Kanai power spectral density function. An empirical coherency loss model is used to define spatial variable seismic ground motions at the base rock. In the second step, power spectral density function of ground motion on surface is derived by considering site amplification effect based on the one dimensional seismic wave propagation theory. Several dynamics analysis of a curved viaduct to various cases of spatially varying seismic ground motions are performed. For comparison, responses to uniform ground motion, to spatial ground motions without considering local site effect, to spatial ground motions with considering coherency loss, phase delay and local site effects are also calculated. The results showed that the generated seismic signals are strongly conditioned by the local site effect. In the same sense, the dynamic response of the viaduct is very sensitive of the variation of local geological conditions of the site. The effect of neglecting local site effect in dynamic analysis gives rise to a significant underestimation of the seismic demand of the structure.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.17-27
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• 2017

In this study, the characteristics of site amplification at seismic observation stations in Japan were estimated using the attenuation relationship of each station's response spectrum. Ground motion records observed after 32 earthquakes were employed to construct the attenuation relationship. The station correction factor at each KiK-net station was compared to the transfer functions between the base rock and the surface. For each station, the plot of the station correction factor versus the period was similar in shape to the graphs of the transfer function (amplitude ratio versus period). Therefore, the station correction factors are effective for evaluating site amplifications considering the period of ground shaking. In addition, the station correction factors were evaluated with respect to the average shear wave velocities using a geographic information system (GIS) dataset. Lastly, the site amplifications for specific periods were estimated throughout Japan.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.663-680
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• 2012

Previous major earthquakes revealed that most damage of the buried segmented pipelines occurs at the joints of the pipelines. It has been proven that the differential motions between the pipe segments are one of the primary reasons that results in the damage (Zerva et al. 1986, O'Roueke and Liu 1999). This paper studies the combined influences of ground motion spatial variations and local soil conditions on the seismic responses of buried segmented pipelines. The heterogeneous soil deposits surrounding the pipelines are assumed resting on an elastic half-space (base rock). The spatially varying base rock motions are modelled by the filtered Tajimi-Kanai power spectral density function and an empirical coherency loss function. Local site amplification effect is derived based on the one-dimensional wave propagation theory by assuming the base rock motions consist of out-of-plane SH wave or combined in-plane P and SV waves propagating into the site with an assumed incident angle. The differential axial and lateral displacements between the pipeline segments are stochastically formulated in the frequency domain. The influences of ground motion spatial variations, local soil conditions, wave incident angle and stiffness of the joint are investigated in detail. Numerical results show that ground motion spatial variations and local soil conditions can significantly influence the differential displacements between the pipeline segments.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.92-101
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• 2012

Three-dimensional finite-difference simulation in a small-scale half-sphere basin with planar free-surface is performed for an arbitrary shear-dislocation point source. A new scheme to deal with free-surface boundary condition is presented. Then basin parameters are examined to understand main characteristics on ground-motion response in the basin. To analyze the frequency content of ground motion in the basin, spectral amplitudes are compared with each other for four sites inside and outside the basin. Also particle motions for those sites are examined to find which kind of wave plays a dominant role in ground-motion response. The results show that seismic energy is concentrated on a marginal area of the basin far from the source. This focusing effect is mainly due to constructive interference of the direct Swave with basin-edge induced surface waves. Also, ground-motion amplification over the deepest part of the basin is relatively lower than that above shallow basin edge. In the small-scale basin with relatively simple bedrock interface, therefore, the ground-motion amplification may be more related to the source azimuth or direction of the incident waves into the basin rather than depth of it.