In 2016, an earthquake occurred at Gyeongju, Korea. At the Wolsong site, the observed peak ground acceleration was lower than the operating basis earthquake (OBE) level of Wolsong nuclear power plant. However, the measured spectral acceleration value exceeded the spectral acceleration of the operating-basis earthquake (OBE) level in some sections of the response spectrum, resulting in a manual shutdown of the nuclear power plant. Analysis of the response spectra shape of the Gyeongju earthquake motion showed that the high-frequency components are stronger than the response spectra shape used in nuclear power plant design. Therefore, the seismic performance evaluation of structures and equipment of nuclear power plants should be made to reflect the characteristics of site-specific earthquakes. In general, the floor response spectrum shape at the installation site or the generalized response spectrum shape is used for the seismic performance evaluation of structures and equipment. In this study, a generalized response spectrum shape is proposed for seismic performance evaluation of structures and equipment for nuclear power plants. The proposed response spectrum shape reflects the characteristics of earthquake motion in Korea through earthquake hazard analysis, and it can be applied to structures and equipment at various locations.
The stochastic point-source model has been widely used in generating artificial ground motions, which can be used to develop a ground motion prediction equation and to evaluate the seismic risk of structures. This model mainly consists of three different functions representing source, path, and site effects. The path effect is used to emulate decay in ground motion in accordance with distance from the source. In the stochastic point-source model, the path attenuation effect is taken into account by using the geometrical attenuation effect and the inelastic attenuation effect. The aim of this study is to develop accurate equations of ground motion attenuation in the Korean peninsula. In this study, attenuation was estimated and validated by using a stochastic point source model and observed ground motion recordings for the Korean peninsula.
Reinforced concrete (RC) buildings built in the 1980s are vulnerable to seismic behavior because they were designed without any consideration of seismic loads. These buildings have widely spaced transverse reinforcements and a short lap splice length of longitudinal reinforcements, which makes them vulnerable to severe damage or even collapse during earthquakes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of bidirectional lateral loads on RC columns with deficient reinforcement details. An experimental test was conducted for two full-scale RC column specimens. The test results of deficient RC columns revealed that bidirectional loading deteriorates the seismic capacity when compared with a column tested unidirectionally. Modeling parameters were extracted from the tested load-displacement response and compared with those proposed in performance-based design standards. The modeling parameters proposed in the standards underestimated the deformation capacity of tested specimens by nearly 50% and overestimated the strength capacity by 15 to 20%.
This study is to investigate the effect of a retrofitted reinforced concrete frame with non-seismic details strengthened by embedded steel moment frames with an indirect joint, which mitigates the problems of the direct joint method. First, full-scale experiments were conducted to confirm the structural behavior of a 2-story reinforced concrete frame with non-seismic details and strengthened by a steel moment frame with an indirect joint. The reinforced concrete frame with non-seismic details showed a maximum strength of 185 kN at an overall drift ratio of 1.75%. The flexural-shear failure of columns was governed, and shear cracks were concentrated at the beam-column joints. The reinforced concrete frame strengthened by the embedded steel moment frames achieved a maximum strength of 701 kN at an overall drift ratio of 1.5% so that the maximum strength was about 3.8 times that of the specimen with non-seismic details. The failure pattern of the retrofitted specimen was the loss of bond strength between the concrete and the rebars of the columns caused by a prying action of the bottom indirect joint because of lateral force. Furthermore, methods are proposed for calculation of the specified strength of the reinforced concrete frame with non-seismic details and strengthened by the steel moment frame with the indirect joint.
Lightly reinforced concrete (RC) moment frames may suffer significant damage during large earthquake events. Most buildings with RC moment frames were designed without considering seismic loads. The load-displacement response of gravity load designed frames could be altered by masonry infill walls. The objective of this study is to investigate the load-displacement response of gravity load designed frames with masonry infill walls. For this purpose, three-story gravity load designed frames with masonry infill walls were considered. The masonry infilled RC frames demonstrated larger lateral strength and stiffness than bare RC frames, whereas their drift capacity was less than that of bare frames. A specimen with a partial-height infill wall showed the least drift capacity and energy dissipation capacity. This specimen failed in shear, whereas other specimens experienced a relatively ductile failure mode (flexure-shear failure).
In this study earthquake records were collected for rock conditions that do not reflect seismic amplification by soil from global earthquake databases such as PEER, USGS, and ESMD. The collected earthquake records were classified and analyzed based on the magnitude and distance of earthquakes. Based on the analyzed earthquakes, the design response spectrum shape, effective ground acceleration, and amplification ratios for each period band are presented. In addition, based on the analyzed data, the story shear force for 5F, 10F, 15F, and 20F were derived through an analysis of the elastic time history for multi-DOF structures. The results from analyzing the rock earthquake record show that the seismic load tends to be amplified greatly in the short period region, which is similar to results observed from the Gyeongju and Pohang earthquakes. In addition, the results of the multi-DOF structure analysis show that existing seismic design criteria can be underestimated and designed in the high-order mode of short- and medium-long cycle structures.