Transactions, SMiRT-23

Manchester, United Kingdom - August 10-14, 2015

Division III

Multi-damping Spectral Matching for the Seismic Analysis of Nuclear

Power Plant Structures Based on Windowed Adjustment Function

Dookie Kim1, Sang-Hoon Lee2 and Kaiser Ahmed3

1
Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Kunsan National University, South Korea
2
Seismic Analysis Specialist, KEPCO E&C Co., Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
3
Researcher, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Kunsan National University, South Korea
ABSTRACT
The latest design response spectrum requires a better preservation technique in phase angles and
avoidance of any shift in matched time history. This research presents an improved iterative spectral
matching method in the time domain for generating acceleration time series compatible with the target
design spectrum. The spectral matching is achieved for several standard frequencies and damping value
simultaneously. The proposed method suggests an iterative technique via implementing windowed
displacement impulse function for correcting the input acceleration time series to match the design
spectrum for every frequency and damping values. Additional enhancement is carried out by applying
a scale factor to achieve the spectral matching with accuracy and convergence enhancements. With an
improved coherence in phase angles the effect of windowing on the adjustment function proves that the
proposed method is effective over previous techniques in reducing the distortion of matched ground
motions.

INTRODUCTION
For the time history analysis of NPP structures, a more complex time-consuming dynamic nonlinear
analysis is applied. Therefore, seed time series are selected from real recorded earthquakes and the
response spectra corresponding to the seed time series should be similar in shape to the target spectra
across the frequency range of interest to the analysis (e.g., Houston, et al., 2010) and phasing
characteristics of the real time series should be preserved (U.S. NRC SRP 3.7.1, 2012).
Various techniques that attempt to generate acceleration time series whose response spectrum closely
matches the target design spectrum have been proposed. Kaul (1978) was the pioneer to propose a time
domain spectral matching method. However, his method was limited for matching at one damping only.
Thereafter Lilhanad and Tseng (1987) have extended the method by Kaul (1978) to develop design
spectra-compatible acceleration time series that well matching with the target design spectra at several
damping values simultaneously. However, the method did not preserve the nonstationary characteristics
of the initial time series, and it has suffered several over-constrained mathematical problem such
converging to a meaningless values, particularly when more than two damping values are used
simultaneously (Choi and Lee, 2003). In addition, although the improved method by (Al Atik and
Abrahamson, 2010) has suggested a new adjustment function that does not require base line correction,
the modified time series are shifted as a result of zero-padding at the beginning of the acceleration time
series.
From this perspective this research suggests an improved spectral matching method in time domain
compatible with design response spectra with multi-damping target design spectrum for the nonlinear
analysis of NPP structures. The proposed method gives better matching over previous methods
preserving the phasing characteristics and avoiding shift in matched time history. The effectiveness of
the proposed method is investigated by illustrating the spectral comparison of twenty sets of recorded
acceleration time series.
 23rd Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology
Manchester, United Kingdom - August 10-14, 2015
Division III

PROPOSED TIME DOMAIN SPECTRAL MATCHING METHOD

In the first step, the correction of the selected recorded or artificial acceleration time series is calculated
by applying the windowed adjustment function to the initial time series separately at every frequency
and damping value. Applying the windowed impulse response function for each frequency and damping
value reduces the distortion of the modified time series that occur when forcing the spectral matching
of numerous several points simultaneously. Thereafter, in the second step, the spectral matching in
every iteration cycle is significantly improved by applying a constant (scale factor).
First, artificial or real recorded acceleration time series are used as the reference time series that
generally do not match with the target design response spectra. The reference acceleration time series
can be described by the sum of sinusoids and phase angles as follows,

̈ ( )= A sin( + ) (1)

Where ̈ ( ) is the reference acceleration time series, A is the amplitude, is the frequency, is the
phase angle of the contributing sinusoid, and is time. The response of a single-degree-of-freedom-
system (SDOF) can be obtained using the following formula,

̈( ) + 2 ̇( ) + ( )=− ̈ ( ) (2)

Where ( ), ̇ ( ), and ̈ ( ) are the relative displacement, velocity, and acceleration response time
series, respectively, and are the natural frequency and the damping value of the oscillator,
respectively. The spectral adjustment which is the spectral difference between the target design
spectrum and the time series spectrum at a given frequency and damping , is given by,

, = , + , (3a)

For the design of long-period structures, the spectral displacements rather than spectral accelerations
are required. Present method suggests displacement spectral values rather than using acceleration
spectral values to evaluate the spectral adjustment can be expressed as,

, = , + , (3b)

, = , (4)

Where , is the displacement spectral value of the reference time series, , is the
spectral value of the target design spectrum, , is the spectral difference.

Windowing of displacement impulse function

In this step, the spectral adjustment is performed at one frequency and one damping value at a time
using the unit response impulse function. The spectral difference between the spectral response of the
reference time series and the target design response spectrum at frequency and damping is
expressed as

,
, = ( )ℎ , − (5)
 23rd Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology
Manchester, United Kingdom - August 10-14, 2015
Division III

Where is the coefficients (amplitudes) of the adjustment function ( ), and ℎ is the impulse
function of a single-degree-of-freedom system (SDOF) at frequency and damping , and is the
integration time parameter. The value to be determined at the frequency and damping of the
maximum spectral difference , as follows,

,
, = = ( )ℎ , − (6)

Where is the convolution of adjustment function and impulse response function, and , is the
time of the peak response. The adjustment function is incorporating Hann Window ( ) . The
windowed adjustment function of a SDOF oscillator can be expressed as

( )= ( )ℎ , −
(7)
Where
1 ( )
ℎ ( )= , ( ) (8)
,

, = 1− (9)

Figure 1 shows reverse impulse response function (left) and adjustment function (right) at 1 .
Therefore, the correction of the reference time series is obtained by,

̈ ( )= , − (10)

Where ̈ ( ) is the acceleration adjustment. Finally, the corrected acceleration time series for iteration
(n+1) can be obtained from the previous iteration (n) as

̈ ( )= ̈ ( )+ ̈ ( ) (11)

These steps are repeated until the desired accuracy of the spectral matching is achieved for the target
frequency and damping value.

Figure 1. Reverse Impulse response function (left) and adjustment function (right) at 1 .
Here in figure 1 (left) the function with red curve represent the adjustment function suggested by Choi
and Lee, 2003. The black bell shaped cosine curve introduces the Hann window sometimes referred as
Hanning which is considered in equation 7. The blue curve signifies the combined effect of adjustment
 23rd Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology
Manchester, United Kingdom - August 10-14, 2015
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function and Hann window called windowed adjustment function which matches the time of peak
response of adjustment function. Figure 1(right) represent the Fourier transform of the convolution of
adjustment function and impulse response function at frequency 1 Hz that yield less distorted result
comparatively.
Scaling of adjusted time series
Scaling the corrected time histories and accordingly scaling their response spectra leads to improved
convergence and hence more accurate spectral matching with the target design spectra. Therefore, the
proposed method recommends multiplying the corrected time history by a constant (scaling factor) as
a step two in its procedure. The design spectra are scaled by multiplying the scale factor by two
control points of the design spectra at 9 and 2.5 , respectively. The scale factor can be expressed
as,

=1− + (12)

Where and are the spectral mean and standard deviation between the corrected time histories and
the design response spectrum at damping value and for iteration cycle , while is a constant related
to the spectral standard deviation at each iteration.
ILLUSTRATION OF PROPOSED METHOD

Selected Ground Motions

For illustrating the proposed iterative method, twenty sets of earthquake time series were selected from
the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center NGA Strong Motion Database (PEER,
2014). Table 1 provides further details on earthquake name, recording station name, NGA number,
magnitude, distance to epicenter, shear wave velocity, and duration of the selected ground motions.
Figure 3 illustrates the acceleration response spectra of the three components of the selected scaled
initial time series at 5% damping for the median and standard deviation confidence level at 0.5 peak
ground acceleration. The scaling on initial (reference) acceleration time series has been applied in the
time domain.

(a) H-1 component (b) H-2 component (c) Vertical component

Figure 3. Acceleration response spectra of the three components of the scaled initial time series at
5% damping.
 23rd Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology
Manchester, United Kingdom - August 10-14, 2015
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Table 1: Selected twenty sets of earthquake.

NGA Duration
No. Earthquake Station name Magnitude R (km) VS (m/s)
number (s)
Denali Taps Pump
1 281 7.9 66 425 75.525
Alaska Station #08
Borrego
2 San Onofre Sce 1026 6.8 46 213.4 40
Mountain
Rio Del Overpass
3 Trinidad 1024 7.2 76.26 311.75 21.985
E Ground
Lawndale - Osage
4 Northridge 6 6.7 39.91 312 39.99
Ave
Lakewood - Del
5 Northridge 733 6.7 57 267.35 35.36
Amo Blvd
Imperial El Centro
6 896 7 8.3 213.4 40
Valley Array #9
Loma Apeel 2e Hayward
7 1634 6.9 52.68 271.06 39.95
Prieta Muir Sch
Tustin - E
8 Landers 68 7.2 136.72 309 45.915
Sycamore
Manjil, Station Code:
9 1166 7.3 75.58 302.64 35.45
Iran 18,-N132
San La - Hollywood
10 186 6.6 22.8 185 70
Fernando Stor Ff
11 Kocaeli Iznik 858 7.5 30.73 476.62 30
Imperial Niland Fire
12 888 6.5 36.9 207 75
Valley-06 Station
Glendora –
13 Landers 882 7.3 122.61 362 56.73
N Oakbank
San Bernardino -
14 Landers 881 7.3 79.76 297 120
E & Hospitality
N Palm Spr
15 Landers 855 7.3 26.84 345 70
Fire Sta
16 Landers Morango Valley 862 7.3 17.36 396.41 70
17 Landers Fort Irwin 880 7.3 63 345 60
Indio - Coachella
18 Landers 1076 7.3 54.3 345 154.48
Canal
Mission Creek
19 Landers 281 7.3 26.96 355.42 70
Fault
Santa Fe Springs -
20 Northridge 1026 6.7 50.22 339.6 34.99
E Joslin

It can be noticed from Figure 3 that the median of the horizontal components of the scaled initial time
series shows higher compatibility with the design spectrum than the vertical component. The median
response spectra of the vertical component show low spectral matching with the design spectrum,
particularly in the low frequency content (<1 ).
The spectral error of the scaled initial time series is shown in Figure 4, where the spectral error at
frequency, , is calculated as,
 23rd Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology
Manchester, United Kingdom - August 10-14, 2015
Division III

−
= (13)

(a) H-1 component (b) H-2 component (c) Vertical component

Figure 4 Spectral error of the scaled initial time series.

Multi-damping design spectra-compatible time series

The proposed method has been applied to match the initial acceleration time series with the target design
response spectrum at several damping values. The typical frequency point-by-point spectrum
compatibility plot for the three components of the design spectra-compatible response spectra of the
modified time series is introduced in this section. This spectrum compatibility comparison is considered
reliable on ensuring the efficiency of the spectrum compatibility (Aziz, 2004). The acceleration
response spectra of the modified time series and the target design spectrum at 5% damping are shown
in Figure 5.
It can be noticed from Figure 5 that the response spectra of the modified time series are well matching
with the target design spectrum, particularly at the low frequency content. In addition, imperfect spectral
matching can be noticed at the high frequency range for few time series with frequencies larger than
15 . However, the median response spectra of the modified time series are perfectly matching with
the target design spectra along the whole frequency content. Similarly, the acceleration response spectra
for different damping values (0.5% to 10%) were checked.
Figure 6 demonstrates the spectral error of the median response spectra of the modified time series to
the response spectra of the target design spectrum at different damping values, i.e. 0.5, 2, 5, 7, and 10%,
respectively. The negative spectral error reflects the presence of the response spectra of the modified
time series below the design spectrum, while the positive spectral error indicated that the response
spectra of the modified time series envelope the design spectrum. It is noticed from Figure 6 that the
lowest negative spectral error took place at the low frequency content (< 0.2 ) at 0.5% damping value.
Conversely, the highest positive spectral error occur at 10% damping. These results indicate that the
response spectra of the modified time series envelop the design response spectral for all the damping
values which satisfied the regulation of the U.S. NRC SRP 3.7.1 (2012). Moreover, it can be seen that
the highest standard deviation of the spectral error occur for 0.5% damping along the whole frequency
 23rd Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology
Manchester, United Kingdom - August 10-14, 2015
Division III

content. In addition, the standard deviation of the spectral error decreases when increasing the damping
value.

(a) H-1 component (b) H-2 component (c) Vertical direction

Figure 5 Acceleration response spectral of the three components of the modified time series at 5%
damping.

(a) H-1 component (b) H-2 component (c) Vertical component

Figure 6 Spectral error of the modified time series.

 23rd Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology
Manchester, United Kingdom - August 10-14, 2015
Division III

(a) Without windowing (b) With windowing

Figure 7 Matched time histories.

Figure 7 clearly demonstrate the accuracy and improvement of matching efficiency between two
methods. The left figure represent method previously Choi and Lee, 2003 suggested, where right one
represent the current method. From this figure it is clearly seen that current method improves the
previous method of seed acceleration time histories matching technique in time domain.

CONCLUSIONS
The current study reports an iterative spectral matching method in the time domain to correct the
acceleration time series to be consistent with the modified multi-damping design spectrum between
9 and 50 considering the effect of windowed adjustment function. Investigating the influence of
the proposed spectral matching method indicates the following:
 The median of the acceleration response spectra of the generated ground motions by the proposed
method illustrates well spectral matching for all damping values and for all the frequency range
including the high frequency contents.
 The results of the spectral error of the median response spectra of the modified time series to the
design response spectra indicate that the response spectra of the modified time series envelop the
design response spectral for all the damping values which satisfied the U.S. NRC regulations.
 Finally, the proposed method is convincing to start using and applying limited number of input
acceleration time series that matching with the target design spectrum in the dynamic nonlinear
analysis and design of the NPP instead of the costly and time consuming analysis with multi-input
time series.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the Nuclear Power Core Technology Development Program of the Korea
Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) grant financial resource from the
Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy, Republic of Korean (No. 2014151010170A).

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