• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.1111-1133
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• 2015

Rebar corrosion in concrete is one of the main causes of reduction of service life of reinforced concrete buildings. This paper presents the influence of rebar corrosion on the structural behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings subjected to strong earthquake ground motion. Different levels of rebar corrosion scenarios were applied on a typical four story RC frame. The deteriorated conditions as a result of these scenarios include loss in cross-sectional area and loss of mechanical properties of the reinforcement bars, loss in bond strength, and loss in concrete strength and its modulus of elasticity. Dynamic analyses of the frame with different corrosion scenarios are performed with selected strong earthquake ground motion records. The influences of degradation in both concrete and reinforcement on structural behavior are investigated by comparing the various parameters of the frame under different corrosion scenarios with respect to each other. The results show that the progressive deterioration of the frame due to rebar corrosion causes serious structural behavior changes such as change in failure mode. The intensity, propagation time, and extensity of rebar corrosion have very important effects on the level of degradation of steel and concrete, as well as on the earthquake behavior of the structure.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.141-157
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• 2014

The Conditional Mean Spectrum represents a powerful link between the seismic hazard information and the selection of strong ground motion records at a particular site. The scope of the paper is to apply for the city of Bucharest for the first time the method to obtain the Conditional Mean Spectrum (CMS) presented by Baker (2011) and to select, on the basis of the CMS, a suite of strong ground motions for performing elastic and inelastic dynamic analyses of buildings and structures with fundamental periods of vibration in the vicinity of 1.0 s. The major seismic hazard for Bucharest and for most of Southern and Eastern Romania is dominated by the Vrancea subcrustal seismic source. The ground motion prediction equation developed for subduction-type earthquakes and soil conditions by Youngs et al. (1997) is used for the computation of the Uniform Hazard Spectrum (UHS) and the CMS. The disaggregation of seismic hazard is then performed in order to determine the mean causal values of magnitude and source-to-site distance for a particular spectral ordinate (for a spectral period T = 1.0 s in this study). The spectral period of 1.0 s is considered to be representative for the new stock of residential and office reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in Bucharest. The differences between the Uniform Hazard Spectrum (UHS) and the Conditional Mean Spectrum (CMS) are discussed taking into account the scarcity of ground motions recorded in the region of Bucharest and the frequency content characteristics of the recorded data. Moreover, a record selection based on the criteria proposed by Baker and Cornell (2006) and Baker (2011) is performed using a dataset consisting of strong ground motions recorded during seven Vrancea seismic events.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.213-232
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• 2014

Pounding is a major cause of bridge damage during earthquakes. In an extreme situation, it can even contribute to the unseating of bridge girders. Long-span bridges will inevitably experience spatially varying ground motions. Soil-structure interaction (SSI) may play a significant role in the structural response of these structures. The objective of this research is to experimentally investigate the effect of spatially varying ground motions on the response of a three-segment bridge considering SSI and pounding. To incorporate SSI, the model was placed on sand contained in sandboxes. The sandboxes were fabricated using soft rubber in order to minimise the rigid wall effect. The spatially varying ground motion inputs were simulated based on the New Zealand design spectra for soft soil, shallow soil and strong rock conditions, using an empirical coherency loss function. The results show that with pounding, SSI can amplify the pier bending moments and the relative opening displacements.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2002.03a
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• pp.42-50
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• 2002

The duration and H/V ratio(the amplitude ratio of the horizontal to vertical components) of ground motions caused by earthquakes in southern Korea are analyzed. Total 329 seismograms of horizontal component recorded at hypocentral distances of 10 to 350 km from 27 earthquakes with local magnitude 2 to 4 are used for the analysis. Simplified relation between the duration of ground motion( $T_{d}$) and the ratio($\chi$) of Arias intensity( $I_{A}$) and squared maximum acceleration($\alpha$$_{max}$$^{2}$) is determined to be $T_{d}$ = 3.423$\chi$$^2$+ 8.200$\chi$ + 0.029, which is useful for the estimation of the duration in southern Korea. There are three distinct distance ranges with different linear variations of the duration in hypocentral distance. They are distance intervals of 10~80km, 80~140km, and the distance greater than 140km. The duration in southern Korea shows clear proportionality to the local magnitude at magnitudes greater than 3.1. The value 1.37 of the H/V ratio obtained in southern Korea is similar to the value 1.4 of ENA(Eastern North America). The H/V ratio in southern Korea increases in the frequency range from 0.3 to 10Hz. The duration and H/V ratio of ground motions derived in this study could be used in the stochastic simulation of strong ground motion.ion.n.n.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2012

An empirical predictive relationship correlating bracketed duration to earthquake magnitude, site-to-source distance, and local site conditions (i.e. rock vs. stiff soil) for stable continental regions of North America is presented herein. The correlation was developed from data from 620 horizontal motions for central and eastern North America (CENA), consisting of 28 recorded motions and 592 scaled motions. The bracketed duration data was comprised of nonzero and zero durations. The non-linear mixed-effects regression technique was used to fit a predictive model to the nonzero duration data. To account for the zero duration data, logistic regression was conducted to model the probability of zero duration occurrences. Then, the probability models were applied as weighting functions to the NLME regression results. Comparing the bracketed durations for CENA motions with those from active shallow crustal regions (e.g. western North America: WNA), the motions in CENA have longer bracketed durations than those in the WNA. Especially for larger magnitudes at far distances, the bracketed durations in CENA tend to be significantly longer than those in WNA.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.105-116
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• 2018

The objective of this study is to investigate the response reducing effect of a seismic isolation system installed between 300m dome and supports under both horizontal and vertical seismic ground motion. The time history analysis is performed to investigate the dynamic behavior of single layer lattice domes with and without a lead rubber bearing seismic isolation system. In order to ensure the seismic performance of lattice domes against strong earthquakes, it is important to investigate the mechanical characteristics of dynamic response. Horizontal and vertical seismic ground motions cause a large asymmetric vertical response of large span domes. One of the most effective methods to reduce the dynamic response is to install a seismic isolation system for observing seismic ground motion at the base of the dome. This paper discusses the dynamic response characteristics of 300m single layer lattice domes supported on a lead rubber seismic isolation device under horizontal and vertical seismic ground motions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.129-142
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• 2013

Linear and nonlinear time history analyses have been becoming more common in seismic analysis and design of structures with advances in computer technology and earthquake engineering. One of the most important issues for such analyses is the selection of appropriate acceleration time histories and matching these histories to a code design acceleration spectrum. In literature, there are three sources of acceleration time histories: artificial records, synthetic records obtained from seismological models and accelerograms recorded in real earthquakes. Because of the increase of the number of strong ground motion database, using and scaling real earthquake records for seismic analysis has been becoming one of the most popular research issues in earthquake engineering. In general, two methods are used for scaling actual earthquake records: scaling in time domain and frequency domain. The objective of this study is twofold: the first is to discuss and summarize basic methodologies and criteria for selecting and scaling ground motion time histories. The second is to analyze scaling results of time domain method according to ASCE 7-05 and Eurocode 8 (1998-1:2004) criteria. Differences between time domain method and frequency domain method are mentioned briefly. The time domain scaling procedure is utilized to scale the available real records obtained from near fault motions and far fault motions to match the proposed elastic design acceleration spectrum given in the Eurocode 8. Why the time domain method is preferred in this study is stated. The best fitted ground motion time histories are selected and these histories are analyzed according to Eurocode 8 (1998-1:2004) and ASCE 7-05 criteria. Also, characteristics of both near fault ground motions and far fault ground motions are presented by the help of figures. Hence, we can compare the effects of near fault ground motions on structures with far fault ground motions' effects.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.667-673
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• 2010

The near fault ground motion (NFGM) is characterized by a single long period velocity pulse with large magnitude. NFGMs have been observed in recent strong earthquakes, Northridge (1994), Japan Kobe (1995), Turkey Izmit (1999), China Sichuan (2008), Haiti (2010) etc. These strong earthquakes have caused considerable damage to infrastructures because the epicenter was close to the urban area, called as NFGM. Extensive research for the far field ground motion (FFGM) have been carried out in strong seismic region, but limited research have been done for NFGM in low or moderate seismic regions because of very few records. The purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze the seismic response of reinforced concrete bridge piers subjected to near-fault ground motions. The seismic performance of six RC bridge piers depending on three confinement steel ratios and three superstructure mass was investigated on the shaking table. From these experimental results, it was confirmed that the reduction of seismic performance was observed for test specimens with lower confinement steel ratio or more deck weight. The displacement ductility of RC bridge piers in terms of the stiffness degradation is proposed based on test results the shaking table.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.497-504
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• 1998

In the nonlinear dynamic structural analysis, the given ground excitation as an input should be well defined. Because of the lack of recorded accelerograms in Korea, it is required to generate an artificial earthquake by a stochastic model of ground excitation with various dynamic properties rather than recorded accelerograms. It is well own that earthquake motions are generally non-stationary with time-varying intensity and frequency content. Many researchers have proposed non-stationary random process models. Yeh and Wen (1990) proposed a non-stationary stochastic process model which can be modeled as components with an intensity function, a frequency modulation function and a power spectral density function to describe such non-stationary characteristics. This model is based on the simulation for the strong-motion earthquakes with magnitude greater than approximately 5.0~6.0, because it will be not only expected to cause structural damage but also involved the characteristics of earthquake motions. Also, the recorded earthquake motion within this range are still very scarce in Korea. Thus, it is necessary to verify the model by the application of it to the mid-magnitude (approximately 4.0~6.0) earthquakes actually recorded in domestic or foreign area. The purpose of the paper is to generate an artificial earthquake using the model of Yeh and Wen in the area with low seismicity.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.37-45
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• 2012

In an effort to further exploit the peak ground-motion acceleration (PGA) information per second available in real time by the enacted law, bracketed summations of the PGA per second ($BSPGA_k$) for 30 seconds based on the records with a rate of 100 samples were compared with the cumulative absolute velocity (CAV) and earthquake intensities based on a worldwide database of records from small-to-large earthquakes. The CAV, currently in use as an earthquake damage indicator for nuclear power plants due to its strong correlation with the earthquake intensity, has the disadvantage of requiring a massive amount of digital data with a rate of more than 100 samples per second. The comparative study shows that the $BSPGA_k$ is well correlated with the CAV over the wide range of strong ground-motion levels, which suggests that the $BSPGA_k$ is one of the new promising ground-motion parameters especially useful for rapid earthquake alert notifications through an earthquake monitoring network. Based on the domestic database of records from small-to-moderate earthquakes with felt reports, it is also observed that the $BSPGA_k$ is comparable to the CAV and better than the PGA in predicting the intensity by using the correlation relation.