• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.1669-1680
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• 2019

Seismic safety is considered to be one of the key design objectives of AP1000 nuclear power plant (NPP) in strong earthquakes. Dynamic behavior, damage development and aggravation effect are studied in this study for the three main components of AP1000 NPP, namely reinforced concrete shield building (RCSB), steel vessel containment (SVC) and reinforced concrete auxiliary building (RCAB). Characteristics including nonlinear concrete tension and compressive constitutions with plastic damage are employed to establish the numerical model, which is further validated by existing studies. The author investigates three earthquakes and eight input levels with the maximum magnitude of 2.4 g and the results show that the concrete material of both RCSB and RCAB have suffered serious damage in intense earthquakes. Considering RCAB in the whole NPP, significant damage aggravation effect can be detected, which is mainly concentrated at the upper intersection between RCSB and RCAB. SVC and reinforcing bar demonstrate excellent seismic performance with no obvious damage.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.455-462
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• 2013

The effects of earthquakes can be devastating especially to existing structures that are not based on earthquake resistant design. This study proposes a steel grid shear wall that can provide a sufficient lateral resistance and can be used as a seismic retrofit method. The pushover analysis was performed on RC structure with and without the proposed steel grid shear wall. Obtain the performance point that the target structure for seismic loads applied to evaluate the response and performance levels. The capacity spectrum at performance point is nearly elastic range, so satisfied the performance objectives(LS level). And response modification factor(R factor) were calculated from the pushover analysis. The R factor approach is currently implemented to reflect inelastic ductile behavior of the structures and to reduce elastic spectral demands from earthquakes to the design level. The R factor increases from 2.17 to 3.25 was higher than the design criteria. As a result, according to reinforcement by steel grid shear wall, strength, stiffness, and ductility of the low-rise RC structure has been appropriately improved.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.297-304
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• 2003

This paper presents the test results of RCS(Reinforced Concrete Steel) beam-column joint with various types of transverse reinforcements such as small-column-type transverse reinforcements, four-piece ㄱ-shape assembled hoops and four-piece ㄱ-shape welded hoops. Five interior beam-column joint specimens were tested to examine the seismic performance and the shear strengths. From the test results, it was found that all the specimens sustained their strength at large levels of story drift(${\theta}$=0.035) without significant loss of strength and stiffness. Therefore it was concluded that the seismic performance and shear strength of the proposed RCS joint are at least the same as those of the specimen with conventional reinforcing details. Also, the contribution of the outer panel to the shear strength of the joint should be evaluated by the compression strut mechanism rather than compression field mechanism.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.3
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• pp.281-292
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• 2022

This study aimed to analyze the dynamic punching shear performance of slab-column joints under cyclic loads with the use of double-hooked end (5D) steel fibers. Structural systems such as slab-column joints are widely found in infrastructures. The susceptibility to collapse of such structures when submitted to seismic loads is highly dependent on the structural performance of the slab-column connections. For this reason, the punching capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) structures has been the subject of a great number of studies. Steel fibers are used to achieve a certain degree of ductility under seismic loads. In this context, 5D steel hooked fibers provide high levels of fiber anchoring, tensile strength and ductility. However, only limited research has been carried out on the performance under cyclic loads of concrete structural members containing steel fibers. This study covers this gap with experimental testing of five different full-scale subassemblies of RC slab-column joints: one without punching reinforcement, one with conventional punching reinforcement and three with 5D steel fibers. The subassemblies were tested under cyclic loading, which consisted of applying increasing lateral displacement cycles, such as in seismic situations, with a constant axial load on the column. This set of cycles was repeated for increasing axial loads on the column until failure. The results showed that 5D steel fiber subassemblies: i) had a greater capacity to dissipate energy, ii) improved punching shear strength and stiffness degradation under cyclic loads; and iii) increased cyclic loading capacity.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.213-226
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• 2018

This paper focuses on the seismic protection of slender old masonry structures by the implementation of prestressing devices at key locations. The devices are vertically and externally located inside the towers in order to be reversible and calibrated. An extensive parametric study on a selected slender tower is carried out based on more than 100 nonlinear static simulations aimed at investigating the impact of different parameters on the seismic performance: (i) different prestressing levels; (ii) shape memory alloy superelasticity and (iii) changes in prestressing-forces in all the stages of the analysis until failure and masonry toe crushing. The tendon materials under analysis are conventional prestressing steel, fiber-reinforced polymers of different fibers and shape memory alloys. The parametric study serves to select the most suitable prestressing device and optimal prestressing level able to dissipate more earthquake energy. The seismic energy dissipation is evaluated by comparing the structural capacity curves in original state and retrofitted.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.807-833
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• 2015

While tuned mass dampers are found to be effective in suppressing vibration in a tall building, integrating it with a semi-active control system enables it to perform more efficiently. In this paper a forty-story tall steel-frame building designed according to the Canadian standard, has been studied with and without semi-active and passive tuned mass dampers. The building is assumed to be located in the Vancouver, Canada. A magneto-rheological fluid based semi-active tuned mass damper has been optimally designed to suppress the vibration of the structure against seismic excitation, and an appropriate control procedure has been implemented to optimize the building's semi-active tuned mass system to reduce the seismic response. Furthermore, the control system parameters have been adjusted to yield the maximum reduction in the structural displacements at different floor levels. The response of the structure has been studied with a variety of ground motions with low, medium and high frequency contents to investigate the performance of the semi-active tuned mass damper in comparison to that of a passive tuned mass damper. It has been shown that the semi-active control system modifies structural response more effectively than the classic passive tuned mass damper in both mitigation of maximum displacement and reduction of the settling time of the building.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.573-589
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• 2015

In order to investigate the seismic behavior of highway bridges under near-fault earthquakes, a parametric study was conducted for different regular and irregular bridges. To this end, an existing regular viaduct Highway Bridge was used as a reference model and five irregular samples were generated by varying span length and pier height. The seismic response of the six highway bridges was evaluated by three dimensional non-linear response history analysis using an ensemble of far-fault and scenario-based near-fault records. In this regard, drift ratio, input and dissipated energy as well as damage index of bridges were compared under far- and near-fault motions. The results indicate that the drift ratio under near-fault motions, on the average, is 100% and 30% more than far-fault motions at DBE and MCE levels, respectively. The energy and damage index results demonstrate a dissipation of lower energy in piers and a significant increase of collapse risk, especially for irregular highway bridges, under near-fault ground motions.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.303-310
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• 2003

Small-scale models have been frequently used for experimental evaluation of seismic performance because of limited testing facilities and economic reasons. However, there are not enough studies on similitude law for analogizing prototype structures accurately with small-scale models, although conventional similitude law based on geometry is not well consistent in the inelastic seismic behavior. When fabricating prototype and small-scale model of reinforced concrete structures by using the same material, added mass is demanded from a volumetric change and scale factor could be limited due to size of aggregate. Therefore, it is desirable that different material is used for small-scale models. Thus, a modified similitude law could be derived depending on geometric scale factor and equivalent modulus ratio. In this study, compressive strength tests are conducted to analyze equivalent modulus ratio of micro-concrete to normal-concrete. Equivalent modulus ratios are divided into elastic, weak nonlinear and strong nonlinear phases, which are based on ultimate strain level. Therefore, an algorithm adaptable to the pseudodynamic test, considering equivalent three phase similitude law based on seismic damage levels, is developed. In addition, prior to tile experiment, it is verified numerically if tile algorithm is applicable to the pseudodynamic test.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.16 no.2 s.80
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• pp.249-260
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• 2004

The longitudinal steel connection of reinforced concrete bridge column is sometimes practically unavoidable, however the current Korean bridge design specifications have no special provisions about lap-splices of longitudinal steel. This paper reports experimental results of a research program investigating the seismic performance of circular RC bridge columns with respect to longitudinal steel connection detailing. Twenty-one circular column specimens were tested under quasi-static test. The columns with the entire longitudinal steel lap-spliced within plastic hinge region show relatively sudden strength degradation and low ductility than the columns with continuous longitudinal steel and the columns with half of longitudinal steel lap-spliced. However, the seismic performance of the column with mechanically connected longitudinal steel is similar to that of the column with continuous longitudinal steel. The final objectives of this study are to suggest appropriate longitudinal reinforcement connection details for the limited ductility design concept and to provide quantitative reference data and tendency for performance or damage assessment based on the performance levels such as cracking, yielding, collapse, etc. Ultimate displacement/drift ratio, displacement ductility, response modification factor, equivalent viscous damping ratio, residual deformation index, and effective stiffness are investigated and discussed in this paper.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.423-442
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• 2015

The effects of accidental eccentricity on the seismic response of four-storey steel buildings laterally stabilized by buckling restrained braced frames are studied. The structures have a square, symmetrical footprint, without inherent eccentricity between the center of lateral resistance (CR) and the center of mass (CM). The position of the bracing bents in the buildings was varied to obtain three different levels of torsional sensitivity: low, intermediate and high. The structures were designed in accordance with the seismic design provisions of the 2010 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC). Three different analysis methods were used to account for accidental eccentricity in design: (1) Equivalent Static Procedure with static in-plane torsional moments assuming a mass eccentricity of 10% of the building dimension (ESP); (2) Response Spectrum Analysis with static torsional moments based on 10% of the building dimension (RSA-10); and (3) Response Spectrum Analysis with the CM being displaced by 5% of the building dimension (RSA-5). Time history analyses were performed under a set of eleven two-component historical records. The analyses showed that the ESP and RSA-10 methods can give appropriate results for all three levels of torsional sensitivity. When using the RSA-5 method, adequate performance was also achieved for the low and intermediate torsional sensitivity cases, but the method led to excessive displacements (5-10% storey drifts), near collapse state, for the highly torsionally sensitive structures. These results support the current provisions of NBCC 2010.