• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.701-713
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• 2018

Many bridges in Algeria were constructed without taking into account the seismic effect in the design. The implantation of a new regulation code RPOA-2008 requires a higher reinforcement ratio than with the seismic coefficient method, which is a common feature of the existing bridges. For better perception of the performance bridge piers and evaluation of the risk assessment of existing bridges, fragility analysis is an interesting tool to assess the vulnerability study of these structures. This paper presents a comparative performance of bridge piers designed with the seismic coefficient method and the new RPOA-2008. The performances of the designed bridge piers are assessed using thirty ground motion records and incremental dynamic analysis. Fragility curves for the bridge piers are plotted using probabilistic seismic demand model to perform the seismic vulnerability analysis. The impact of changing the reinforcement strength on the seismic behavior of the designed bridge piers is checked by fragility analysis. The fragility results reveal that the probability of damage with the RPOA-2008 is less and perform well comparing to the conventional design pier.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.265-273
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• 2023

This study proposes a methodology for the regional seismic risk assessment of structural damage to buildings in Korea based on evaluating individual buildings, considering inconsistency between the administrative district border and grid lines to define seismic hazard. The accuracy of seismic hazards was enhanced by subdividing the current 2km-sized grids into ones with a smaller size. Considering the enhancement of the Korean seismic design code in 2005, existing seismic fragility functions for seismically designed buildings are revised by modifying the capacity spectrum according to the changes in seismic design load. A seismic risk index in building damage is defined using the total damaged floor area considering building size differences. The proposed seismic risk index was calculated for buildings in 29 administrative districts in 'A' city in Korea to validate the proposed assessment algorithm and risk index. In the validation procedure, sensitivity analysis was performed on the grid size, quantitative building damage measure, and seismic fragility function update.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.709-718
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• 2020

Fragility curves are useful tools to estimate the damage probability of buildings owing to seismic actions. The purpose of this study is to investigate seismic vulnerability of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings, according to the 2007 and 2018 Turkish Seismic Codes, using fragility curves. For the numerical analyses, typical five- and seven-storey RC buildings were selected and incremental dynamic analyses (IDA) were performed. To complete the IDAs, eleven earthquake acceleration records multiplied by various scaling factors from 0.2g to 0.8g were used. To predict nonlinearity, a distributed hinge model that involves material and geometric nonlinearity of the structural members was used. Damages to confined concrete and reinforcement bar of structural members were obtained by considering the unit deformation demands of the 2007 Turkish Seismic Code (TSC-2007) and the 2018 Turkey Building Earthquake Code (TBEC-2018). Vulnerability evaluation of these buildings was performed using fragility curves based on the results of incremental dynamic analyses. Fragility curves were generated in terms of damage levels occurring in confined concrete and reinforcement bar of structural members with a lognormal distribution assumption. The fragility curves show that the probability of damage occurring is more according to TBEC-2018 than according to TSC-2007 for selected buildings.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.5
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• pp.633-644
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• 2018

This paper presents the results of an assessment of the seismic fragility of a long, curved multi-frame bridge under multi-support earthquake excitations. To achieve this aim, the numerical model of columns retrofitted with elliptical steel jackets was developed and validated using existing experimental results. A detailed nonlinear numerical model of the bridge that can capture the inelastic response of various components was then created. Using nonlinear time-history analyses for a set of stochastically generated spatially variable ground motions, component demands were derived and then convolved with new capacity-based limit state models to obtain seismic fragility curves. The comparison of failure probabilities obtained from uniform and multi-support excitation analyses revealed that the consideration of spatial variability significantly reduced the median value of fragility curves for most components except for the abutments. This observation indicates that the assumption of uniform motions may considerably underestimate seismic demands. Moreover, the spatial correlation of ground motions resulted in reduced dispersion of demand models that consequently decreased the dispersion of fragility curves for all components. Therefore, the spatial variability of ground motions needs to be considered for reliable assessment of the seismic performance of long multi-frame bridge structures.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.101-108
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• 2019

The seismic safety of nuclear power plants has always been emphasized by the effects of accidents. In general, the seismic safety evaluation of nuclear power plants carries out a seismic probabilistic safety assessment. The current probabilistic safety assessment assumes that damage to the structure, system, and components (SSCs) occurs independently to each other or perfect dependently to each other. In case of earthquake events, the failure event occurs with the correlation due to the correlation between the seismic response of the SSCs and the seismic performance of the SSCs. In this study, the EEMS (External Event Mensuration System) code is developed which can perform the seismic probabilistic safety assessment considering correlation. The developed code is verified by comparing with the multiplier n, which is for calculating the joint probability of failure, which is proposed by Mankamo. It is analyzed the changes in seismic fragility curves and seismic risks with correlation. As a result, it was confirmed that the seismic fragility curves and seismic risk change according to the failure correlation coefficient. This means that it is important to select an appropriate failure correlation coefficient in order to perform a seismic probabilistic safety assessment. And also, it was confirmed that carrying out the seismic probabilistic safety assessment in consideration of the seismic correlation provides more realistic results, rather than providing conservative or non-conservative results comparing with that damage to the SSCs occurs independently.

• 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.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.79-90
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• 2020

4- and 8-storey reinforced-concrete frame buildings are analyzed under the suites of the near-fault pulse-like, and the corresponding spectrally equivalent far-fault ground-motion records. Seismic fragility curves for the slight, moderate, extensive, and complete damage states are developed, and the damage probability matrices, and the mean loss ratios corresponding to the Design Basis Earthquake and the Maximum Considered Earthquake hazard levels are compared, for the investigated buildings and sets of ground-motion records. It is observed that the spectrally equivalent far-fault ground-motion records result in comparable estimates of the fragility curve parameters, as that of the near-fault pulse-like ground-motion records. As a result, the derived damage probability matrices and mean loss ratios using two suites of ground-motion records differ only marginally (of the order of ~10%) for the investigated levels of seismic hazard, thus, implying the potential for application of the spectrally equivalent ground-motion records, for seismic fragility and risk assessment at the near-fault sites.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.33-41
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• 2013

Due to a high level of system ductility, steel moment resisting frames have been widely used for lateral force resisting structural systems in high seismic zones. Earthquake field investigations after Northridge earthquake in 1994 and Kobe earthquake in 1995 have reported that many steel moment resisting frames designed before 1990's had suffered significant damages and structural collapse. In this research, seismic performance assessment of steel moment resisting frames designed in accordance with the previous seismic provisions before 1990's was performed. Buckling-restrained braces and shear walls are considered for seismic retrofit of the reference buildings. Increasing stiffness and strength of the buildings using buckling-restrained braces and shear walls are considered as options to rehabilitate the damaged buildings. Probabilistic seismic performance assessment using fragility analysis results is used for the criteria for determining an appropriate seismic retrofit strategy. The fragility contour method can be used to provide an intial guideline to structural engineers when various structural retrofit options for the damaged buildings are available.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.4
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• pp.481-494
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• 2020

In this paper, a probability-based procedure to evaluate the performance of existing RC structures exposed to seismic and fire actions is presented. The procedure is demonstrated with reference to an existing old school building, located in Italy. The vulnerability assessment of the building highlights deficiencies under both static and seismic loads. Retrofit operations are designed to achieve the seismic safety. The idea of the work consists in assessing the performance of the existing and retrofitted building in terms of both the seismic and fire resistance. The seismic retrofit and fire resistance upgrading follow different paths, depending on the specific configuration of the building. A good seismic retrofit does not entail an improving of the fire resistance and vice versa. The goal of the current work is to study the variation of response due to the uncertainties considered in records/fire curves selection and to carry out the assessment of the studied RC structure by obtaining fragility curves under the effect of different records/temperature. The results show the fragility curves before and after retrofit operations and both in terms of seismic performance and fire resistance performance, measuring the percent improving for the different limit states.