This paper verifies the difference of the seismic behavior and seismic damage of the neighboring two reinforced concrete piers damaged by the 1995 Hyogoken Nanbu earthquake. The two piers were almost the same size, carrying slightly different dead load, and were provided with the same reinforcement arrangement except the amount of longitudinal reinforcement at the bottom portion of the piers. The pier with more reinforcement was completely collapsed due to this near field earthquake by shear failure at the longitudinal reinforcement cut-off while the other was only damaged at the bottom by flexure even though the longitudinal reinforcement cut-off was also existed at the mid height of the pier. According to the results of the pseudo dynamic test, the seismic damage was recognized to be greatly dependent on the ground motion characteristics even though the employed ground motions had the same peak acceleration. The severe damage was observed when the test employed the seismic wave that had strong influence to the longer period range compared to the initial natural period of the pier. On the other hand, based on the similar model experiment, the defect of gas-pressure welded splice of longitudinal reinforcement was revealed to save the piers against collapse due to the so-called fail-safe mechanism contrary to the intuitive opinion of some researchers. It was concluded that the primary cause of the collapse of the pier was the extremely strong intensity and peculiar characteristics of the earthquake motion according to both the site-specific and the structure-specific effects.
This paper focuses on providing a practical approach for decision making in Performance-Based Design (PBD). Satisfactory performance is defined by several performance objectives that place limits on direct (monetary) loss and on a tolerable probability of collapse. No specific limits are placed on conventional engineering parameters such as forces or deformations, although it is assumed that sound capacity design principles are followed in the design process. The proposed design procedure incorporates different performance objectives up front, before the structural system is created, and assists engineers in making informed decisions on the choice of an effective structural system and its stiffness (period), base shear strength, and other important global structural parameters. The tools needed to implement this design process are (1) hazard curves for a specific ground motion intensity measure, (2) mean loss curves for structural and nonstructural subsystems, (3) structural response curves that relate, for different structural systems, a ground motion intensity measure to the engineering demand parameter (e.g., interstory drift or floor acceleration) on which the subsystem loss depends, and (4) collapse fragility curves. Since the proposed procedure facilitates decision making in the conceptual design process, it is referred to as a Design Decision Support System, DDSS. Implementation of the DDSS is illustrated in an example to demonstrate its practicality.
For areas such as the Korean Peninsula, which have moderate seismic activity but no available records of strong ground motion, synthetic seismograms can be used to evaluate ground motion without waiting for a strong earthquake. Such seismograms represent the estimated ground motions expected from a set of possible earthquake scenarios. Local site effects are especially important in assessing the seismic hazard and possible ground motion scenarios for a specific fault. The earthquake source and rupture dynamics can be described as a two-step process of rupture initiation and front propagation controlled by a frictional sliding mechanism. The seismic wavefield propagates through heterogeneous geological media and finally undergoes near-surface modulations such as amplification or deamplification. This is a complex system in which various scales of physical phenomena are integrated. A unified approach incorporates multi-scale problems of dynamic rupture, radiated wave propagation, and site effects into an all-in-one model using a three-dimensional, fourth-order, staggered-grid, finite-difference method. The method explains strong ground motions as products of complex systems that can be modified according to a variety of fine-scale rupture scenarios and friction models. A series of such deterministic earthquake scenarios can shed light on the kind of damage that would result and where it would be located.
This paper describes the state-of-the art research activities on seismic isolation systems for improving the seismic capacities of the bridges in Korea. Though Korea is located in a region of low-to-moderate seismicity, the construction of seismic isolation systems has increased rapidly. The application of seismic isolation system has become popular worldwide because of its stable behavior and economical construction especially for bridge structures. Since optimal reliability level of isolated bridges can be determined as the one that provides the highest net life-cycle benefit to society, or the minimum Life-Cycle Cost (LCC), an optimal design procedure based on minimum LCC concept is more expedient for the design of seismically isolated bridges in areas of low-to-moderate seismicty. To verify the adequacy of the new design concept based on the LCC minimization, experimental studies on seismically isolated bridge are introduced as well, which include pseudo-dynamic test of scaled pier and dynamic field test of full-scale. With the application of seismic isolation systems, many kinds of dampers to improve the seismic capacity of structure are also applied not only to new bridges but also to existing bridges.
Liquefaction-induced lateral spreading continues to be a major cause of damage to deep foundations. Currently there is a huge uncertainty associated with the maximum lateral pressures and forces applied by the liquefied soil to deep foundations. Furthermore, recent centrifuge and is shaking table tests of pile foundations indicate that the permeability of the liquefied sand is an extremely important and poorly understood factor. This article presents experimental results and analysis of one of the centrifuge tests that were conducted at the 150 g-ton RPI centrifuge to investigate the effect of soil permeability in the response of single piles and pile groups to lateral spreading.
Seismic design codes are developed mainly based on the observation of the behavior of structures in the high seismicity regions where structures may experience significant amount of inelastic deformations and major earthquakes may result in structural damages in a vast area. Therefore, seismic loads are reduced in current design codes for building structures using response modification factors which depend on the ductility capacity and overstrength of a structural system. However, structures in low seismicity regions, subjected to a minor earthquake, will behave almost elastically because of the larger overstrength of structures in low seismicity regions such as Korea. Structures in low seismicity regions may have longer periods since they are designed to smaller seismic loads and main target of design will be minor or moderate earthquakes occurring nearby. Ground accelerations recorded at stations near the epicenter may have somewhat different response spectra from those of distant station records. Therefore, it is necessary to verify if the seismic design methods based on high seismicity would he applicable to low seismicity regions. In this study, the adequacy of design spectra, period estimation and response modification factors are discussed for the seismic design in low seismicity regions. The response modification factors are verified based on the ductility and overstrength of building structures estimated from the farce-displacement relationship. For the same response modification factor, the ductility demand in low seismicity regions may be smaller than that of high seismicity regions because the overstrength of structures may be larger in low seismicity regions. The ductility demands in example structures designed to UBC97 for high, moderate and low seismicity regions were compared. Demands of plastic rotation in connections were much lower in low seismicity regions compared to those of high seismicity regions when the structures are designed with the same response modification factor. Therefore, in low seismicity regions, it would be not required to use connection details with large ductility capacity even for structures designed with a large response modification factor.
Site response analyses were performed based on equivalent linear technique using shear wave velocity profiles of 162 sites collected around the Korean peninsula. The site characteristics, particularly the shear wave velocities and the depth to the bedrock, are compared to those in the western United States. The results show that the site-response coefficients based on the mean shear velocity of the top 30m (V_{S30}) suggested in the current code underestimates the motion in short-period ranges and overestimates the motion in mid-period ranges. The current Korean code based on UBC is required to be modified considering site characteristics in Korea for the reliable estimation of site amplification. From the results of numerical estimations, new regression curves were derived between site coefficients (F_{a}\;and\;F_{v}) and the fundamental site periods, and site coefficients were grouped based on site periods with reasonable standard deviations compared to site classification based on V_{S30}. Finally, new site classification system and modification of design response spectra are recommended considering geotechnical characteristics in Korea.