• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.253-261
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• 2018

This article details a bridge-specific fragility method developed to enhance the seismic design and resilience of bridges. Current seismic design processes provide guidance for the design of a bridge that will not collapse during a design hazard event. However, they do not provide performance information of the bridge at different hazard levels or due to design changes. Therefore, there is a need for a supplement to this design process that will provide statistical information on the performance of a bridge, beyond traditional emphases on collapse prevention. This article proposes a bridge-specific parameterized fragility method to enable efficient estimation of various levels of damage probability for alternative bridge design parameters. A multi-parameter demand model is developed to incorporate bridge design details directly in the fragility estimation. Monte Carlo simulation and Logistic regression are used to determine the fragility of the bridge or bridge component. The resulting parameterized fragility model offers a basis for a bridge-specific design tool to explore the influence of design parameter variation on the expected performance of a bridge. When used as part of the design process, these tools can help to transform a prescriptive approach into a more performance-based approach, efficiently providing probabilistic performance information about a new bridge design. An example of the method and resulting fragility estimation is presented.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2014

The seismic evaluation of electric power facilities in the switchyard of nuclear power plants is currently insufficient. In order to evaluate the seismic performance of lightning arrester subjected to four types of earthquake (near- and far-fault earthquakes, NEHRP Site Class A&B and D earthquakes), seismic fragility analysis using maximum likelihood estimation is performed considering various damage states. The comparison of the seismic fragility curves for three main parts of lightning arrester that are the busing, anchor and steel frame, reveals that the failure of lightning arrester is governed by the bushing damage mode such as porcelain cracking.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.527-544
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• 2009

In this study, the periodic seismic performance evaluation scheme is proposed using a structural health monitoring system in terms of seismic fragility. An instrumented highway bridge is used to demonstrate the evaluation procedure involving (1) measuring ambient vibration of a bridge under general vehicle loadings, (2) identifying modal parameters from the measured acceleration data by applying output-only modal identification method, (3) updating a preliminary finite element model (obtained from structural design drawings) with the identified modal parameters using real-coded genetic algorithm, (4) analyzing nonlinear response time histories of the structure under earthquake excitations, and finally (5) developing fragility curves represented by a log-normal distribution function using maximum likelihood estimation. It is found that the seismic fragility of a highway bridge can be updated using extracted modal parameters and can also be monitored further by utilizing the instrumented structural health monitoring system.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.79-89
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• 2016

If scour is occurred at shallow foundation of bridge, seismic performance of the bridge will be reduced. In order to evaluate accurate seismic response of bridge according to scour depths, modeling of foundation reflecting scour effect is important. In this study, taking into account the effect of the reduction in embedment depth of the shallow foundation by scouring, the soil around the foundation is modelled as an equivalent soil spring with various stiffness. Seismic fragility analyses for 3 types of bridges subjected to 4 types of ground motions classified into Site Class A, B, C, D are evaluated according to several scour depths. From the fragility analysis results, it can be observed that the deeper the scour depth, the higher probability of exceeding damage states. Also, seismic failure probability of asymmetric bridge is higher than that of symmetric bridge.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2012

Seismic fragility functions are derived for probabilistic evaluation of seismic control performance of energy dissipation devices installed in reinforced concrete structures. Displacement-dependent dampers are added to the nonlinear single-degree-of-freedom systems with different natural periods and hysteretic characteristics of which stiffness and strength has uncertainty. Nonlinear time history analysis is conducted for those SDOF systems and the result is processed statistically to obtain seismic fragility functions in the form of log normal distribution. Variation of seismic fragility functions for different parameters of SDOF systems and dampers are investigated and the seismic control performance is assessed probabilistically.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.561-572
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• 2019

In the design criterion for the nuclear power plant piping system, the limit state of the piping against an earthquake is assumed to be plastic collapse. The failure of a common piping system, however, means the leakage caused by the cracks. Therefore, for the seismic fragility analysis of a nuclear power plant, a method capable of quantitatively expressing the failure of an actual piping system is required. In this study, it was conducted to propose a quantitative failure criterion for piping system, which is required for the seismic fragility analysis of nuclear power plants against critical accidents. The in-plane cyclic loading test was conducted to propose a quantitative failure criterion for steel pipe elbows in the nuclear power plant piping system. Nonlinear analysis was conducted using a finite element model, and the results were compared with the test results to verify the effectiveness of the finite element model. The collapse load point derived from the experiment and analysis results and the damage index based on the stress-strain relationship were defined as failure criteria, and seismic fragility analysis was conducted for the piping system of the BNL (Brookhaven National Laboratory) - NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) benchmark model.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.179-189
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• 2021

Conditional spectra (CS) are applied to the seismic fragility assessment of a nuclear power plant (NPP) containment building for comparison with a relevant conventional uniform hazard response spectrum (UHRS). Three different control frequencies are considered in developing conditional spectra. The contribution of diverse magnitudes and epicentral distances is identified from deaggregation for the UHRS at a control frequency and incorporated into the conditional spectra. A total of 30 ground motion records are selected and scaled to simulate the probability distribution of each conditional spectra, respectively. A set of lumped mass stick models for the containment building are built considering nonlinear bending and shear deformation and uncertainty in modeling parameters using the Latin hypercube sampling technique. Incremental dynamic analysis is conducted for different seismic input models in order to estimate seismic fragility functions. The seismic fragility functions and high confidence of low probability of failure (HCLPF) are calculated for different seismic input models and analyzed comparatively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.386-400
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• 2022

Seismic fragility analysis, a part of seismic probabilistic risk assessment (SPRA), is commonly used to establish the relationship between a representative property of earthquakes and the failure probability of a structure, component, or system. Current guidelines on the SPRA of nuclear power plants (NPPs) used worldwide mainly reflect the earthquake characteristics of the western United States. However, different earthquake characteristics may have a significant impact on the seismic fragility of a structure. Given the concern, this study aimed to investigate the effects of earthquake characteristics on the seismic fragility of concrete containments housing the OPR-1000 reactor. Earthquake time histories were created from 30 ground motions (including those of the 2016 Gyeongju earthquake) by spectral matching to the site-specific response spectrum of Hanbit nuclear power plants in South Korea. Fragility curves of the containment structure were determined under the linear response history analysis using a lumped-mass stick model and 30 ground motions, and were compared in terms of earthquake characteristics. The results showed that the median capacity and high confidence of low probability of failure (HCLPF) tended to highly depend on the sustained maximum acceleration (SMA), and increase when using the time histories which have lower SMA compared with the others.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.341-380
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• 2023

This study evaluates the seismic fragilities in fill slopes in South Korea through parametric finite element analyses that have been barely investigated thus far. We consider three slope geometries for a slope of height 10 m and three slope angles, and two soil types, namely frictional and frictionless, associated with two soil states, loose and dense for frictional soils and soft and stiff for frictionless soils. The input ground motions accounting for four site conditions in South Korea are obtained from one-dimensional site response analyses. By comparing the numerical modeling of slopes using PLAXIS^2D against the previous studies, we compiled suites of the maximum permanent slope displacement (D_max) against two ground motion parameters, namely, peak ground acceleration (PGA) and Arias Intensity (I_A). A probabilistic seismic demand model is adopted to compute the probabilities of exceeding three limit states (minor, moderate, and extensive). We propose multiple seismic fragility curves as functions of a single ground motion parameter and numerous seismic fragility surfaces as functions of two ground motion parameters. The results show that soil type, slope angle, and input ground motion influence these probabilities, and are expected to help regional authorities and engineers assess the seismic fragility of fill slopes in the road systems in South Korea.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.653-663
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• 2017

A seismic margin assessment evaluates how much margin exists for the system under beyond design basis earthquake events. Specifically, the seismic margin for the entire system is evaluated by utilizing a systems analysis based on the sub-system and component seismic fragility data. Each seismic fragility curve is obtained by using empirical, experimental, and/or numerical simulation data. The systems analysis is generally performed by employing a fault tree analysis. However, the current practice has clear limitations in that it cannot deal with the uncertainties of basic components and accommodate the newly observed data. Therefore, in this paper, we present a Bayesian-based seismic margin assessment that is conducted using seismic fragility data and fault tree analysis including Bayesian inference. This proposed approach is first applied to the pooltype nuclear research reactor system for the quantitative evaluation of the seismic margin. The results show that the applied approach can allow updating by considering the newly available data/information at any level of the fault tree, and can identify critical scenarios modified due to new information. Also, given the seismic hazard information, this approach is further extended to the real-time risk evaluation. Thus, the proposed approach can finally be expected to solve the fundamental restrictions of the current method.