20th International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology (SMiRT 20)

Espoo, Finland, August 9-14, 2009

SMiRT 20-Division 5, Paper 1874

Seismic Response Impact of Incoherent SSI Analysis

by New Hard-Rock Coherency Model

Joo-Hyung Kanga, Sang-Hoon Leea

a
Civil/Architectural Dept., Korea Power Engineering Co., Yongin, Korea, e-mail:frame365@kopec.co.kr

Keywords: Wave Incoherence, Coherency Function, Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI)

1 ABSTRACT

Many earthquake recordings show the response motions at building foundations to be less intense than the
corresponding free-field motion. To account for these phenomena, the concept of spatial variation, or wave
incoherence was introduced. Various approaches for its application to practical analysis and design as a soil-
structure interaction effect have been developed, and several coherency function models have been proposed.
This paper describes the effect of the coherency function model for hard-rock site newly proposed by
Abrahamson in 2007. A mathematical model for typical reactor building of nuclear power plant was built,
and three-directional input motion sets were generated. To investigate the response impact of site condition,
foundation type, incoherence model, and rocking and torsional movement, various case studies were
performed. From each soil-structure interaction analysis for the building, this paper presents several insights
into the seismic behavior of structures.

2 INTRODUCTION

Strong ground motion data obtained in dense arrays reveal that the seismic response of structures is
influenced by spatial incoherence of the seismic wave. The spatial incoherence of strong motion has the
effect of lowering the earthquake input at building foundations especially in high frequency range. This
phenomenon is thought to be caused by various and complex wave propagation procedures such as
difference of wave path distance, anisotropy of soil media, weathering of the material, near surface
scattering, and so on. However, the mechanism of each factor is very difficult to find out, and its theoretical
quantification also remains uneasy problems.
For the purpose of engineering and structural design, many approaches ranging from simplified to
rigorous, for example, spectrum reduction factor, ratio of response spectrum, and wave coherency function
have been developed. From among them, the coherency function concept is acknowledged as the most
systematic and rigorous method to apply the wave incoherence to practical analysis and design of structures.
Several coherency functions have been proposed for engineering purpose as a part of soil-structure
interaction (SSI) analysis. However, the coherency functions have not reflected the characteristics of hard-
rock media, and their application to the practical nuclear structures was not justified sufficiently. In 2007, N.
A. Abrahamson released a new coherency function model for hard-rock site by reflecting the earthquake data
in a hard-rock region. Nevertheless, there is little investigation about its application to various conditions and
comparison with the conventional coherency models.
This paper is focused on the response impact of hard-rock coherency model proposed in 2007 on the
incoherent SSI analysis results of nuclear power plant (NPP) structure. A typical reactor building of
pressurized water reactor (PWR) type NPP was modeled, and three-directional input motion sets were
generated. To investigate the effect of site condition, foundation type, and incoherence model, various case
studies were performed. The rock media on which the building is placed were classified into moderate hard-
rock and extreme hard-rock according to the shear wave velocity. And two foundation types (surface-
supported and ground-embedded) were considered. The SSI analysis results including coherence,
conventional incoherence, and hard-rock incoherence model were obtained and compared with one another.
The structural responses considering rocking and torsion effects are also investigated.

1
3 COHERENCY FUNCTION

The effect of seismic wave incoherence is that motions recorded on foundations of structures differ from
those measured in the adjacent free-field. Generally, the motion measured on the foundation is less than the
motion recorded in the free-field, especially at high frequencies.
Specific aspect of interaction between soil and structure is considered to contribute to the observations
of foundation motion being less than the free-field. The interaction is due to the spatial variation of the
ground motion over the portion of the foundation system abutting the soil or rock. For NPP structures, which
have large and stiff foundation mats, the amplitudes of high frequency seismic response of the foundation
mat are expected to be significantly less than those in the free-field due to horizontal and vertical spatial
variation of ground motion.
This phenomenon of seismic wave has been recognized for many years, but the lack of an adequately
large set of recorded data prevented quantification of the phenomenon and the development of approaches
for the incorporation of the effect into the dynamic analysis of NPP structures.
After the accumulation of real earthquake recordings and empirical data in dense arrays, the spatial
variation of ground motions could be quantified by wave coherency function. Theoretically, based on the
assumption that the ground motions can be represented by a stationary random process, the coherency
function is defined by the ratio of the cross power spectrum S ij to the geometric mean of the auto power
spectra Sii, Sjj as shown in equation (1). The mathematically defined coherency is a complex number form of
angular frequency .

(1)

For engineering application, empirical functions are more practical and used more frequently. N. A.
Abrahamson has developed state-of-the-art representations of coherency functions based on a large number
of densely spaced ground motion recordings. In 2007, Abrahamson developed a new coherency function for
hard-rock site using Pinyon Flat array data. The Pinyon Flat array is located in southern California between
the San Jacinto and southern San Andreas Faults. The site where the array was deployed is classified as a
hard-rock site whose shear velocity profile is as shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1. Shear wave velocity profile at Pinyon Flat array

From fifty eight force-balanced accelerometers of the dense array, more than two hundred earthquakes
were recorded. The recordings were analysed statistically, and a coherency function model as shown in
equation (2) and Table 1 was proposed for hard-rock site.

(2)

2
 Table 1. Coefficients of coherency function for horizontal and vertical components

The coherency function defines the relationship between the separation distance of each location
and the frequency of ground motion. It is based on the assumption that main factors affecting on spatial
variation of seismic wave are the separation distance and frequency. Generally, coherency of motion
decreases significantly with increasing frequency and increasing distance between points of interest. The
coherency in equation (2) goes to unity at zero separation distance and zero frequency, and goes to zero at
very large separation distance and very high frequency. The coherency function model for hard-rock site
accounts for these traits of incoherence at all frequencies of interest and all discretized interaction points on
the foundation.
In this study, the computer code SASSI was used for SSI analyses. To identify the seismic response
impact of the hard-rock coherency model, Abrahamson’s new function as well as the conventional model
(2005) was implanted to the INCOH module of the SASSI program.

4 ANALYSIS PROCEDURE

To investigate the response impact of the hard-rock coherency model, various study cases were established.
First, Structural model and input motions for analysis were generated. Then, the corresponding parameters
were assigned to the SSI analysis models according to the site condition, foundation type, and incoherence
model. After each analysis was performed, the results at significant locations were obtained and analyzed.

4.1 Structural model

For SSI analyses, a typical reactor building of PWR type NPP was considered. Fig. 2 shows the three-
dimensional beam-stick model of the building. The reactor building consists of a super-structure and a
basemat foundation. The super-structure including a containment shell and internal walls was modeled by
beam elements, and the circular foundation was modeled by solid elements. Rigid links represented by
beams of large flexural and axial stiffness were used to connect the stick models to the basemat. The element
size of the model was selected enough to simulate the wave propagation.

Figure 2. Lumped-mass beam-stick model of reactor building

3
 Material of the super-structure is concrete that has elastic modulus of 690,000 ksf and damping ratio of
2%. To ignore the flexibility of foundation, large stiffness property was assigned to the basemat. All masses
of the super-structure were lumped to the significant points, whereas mass property of the foundation was
distributed by assigning unit weight of 0.15 kcf.
To identify the responses of rocking and torsional behavior, a couple of edge points and rigid beam
elements were added to the model. The responses were obtained at six locations, i.e., the central and edge
points of the basemat at El. 0.0 ft, containment shell at El. 143.8 ft and internal wall at El. 61.0 ft.

4.2 Input motion

For input motion, five sets of acceleration time histories were prepared. The five sets are meant to obtain
more reliable and stable outputs by averaging all the responses from the input motions. Each set is composed
of two horizontal components and one vertical component, and they were all generated artificially by a
numerical simulation method. The time histories are defined at a time step of 0.005 seconds, and each
component has a total duration of 20 seconds with approximately 10 second strong motion.
The time history sets comply with the site-specific response spectra (SSRS) that were developed for
hard-rock site that represents the place where the reactor building is located. The level of the spectra in high
frequency range exceeds Regulatory Guide (RG) 1.60 standard spectra as shown in Fig. 3. The peak
accelerations for horizontal and vertical components are anchored to 0.182g, and 0.121g, respectively. Fig. 4
shows the directional shapes of the acceleration time histories of one of the five sets.

0.7 0.7

0.6 0.6
Acceleration (g)

Acceleration (g)

0.5 0.5

0.4 0.4

0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
0.1 1 10 100 0.1 1 10 100
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)
RG 1.60 Spectrum Site Specific RS RG 1.60 Spectrum Site Specific RS

(a) Horizontal component (b) Vertical component

Figure 3. Response spectra of input motions (5% damping)

0.2 0.2 0.2

0.15 0.15 0.15
0.1 0.1 0.1
Acceleration (g)..

Acceleration (g)..

Acceleration (g)..

0.05 0.05 0.05

0 0 0
-0.05 -0.05 -0.05
-0.1 -0.1 -0.1
-0.15 -0.15 -0.15
-0.2 -0.2 -0.2
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Time (sec) Time (sec) Time (sec)

(a) X-direction (b) Y-direction (c) Z-direction

Figure 4. Acceleration time histories of one of five input motion sets

4.3 Analysis case

Total twelve analysis cases were planned according to the site condition, foundation type and spatial
variation model of input motion. And the corresponding SSI analyses were performed for each case.

4
 The site conditions were assumed to be uniform rock media with shear wave velocities of 3,500 ft/s and
8,000 ft/s, respectively. The former case is called moderate hard-rock (MHR) in this study, and the latter is
extreme hard-rock (EHR).
According to the foundation type, the cases are classified into surface-supported foundation (SSF) and
ground-embedded foundation (GEF) respectively as shown in Fig. 5.

Figure 5. Surface-supported and ground-embedded foundation models

Input motions were to be applied as the free-field seismic motions at the ground surface. To consider the
effect of wave incoherence, three types of coherency model were used. One is coherent motion case (COH),
another is Abrahamson’s 2005 initial incoherence model (I05), and the other is 2007 hard-rock incoherence
model (I07). For two latter cases, wave passage effect was considered by assigning the apparent wave
velocity of 2,700 m/s.
To investigate the rocking and torsional motions of the structure, six locations as stated in section
4.1were selected for analysis, i.e., basemat foundation center (BFC) and edge (BFE), containment shell
center (CSC) and edge (CSE), internal wall center (IWC) and edge (IWE). And to identify three-dimensional
behavior, the responses from X, Y and Z directional excitations were coupled at each location.
The final responses for each case were obtained by averaging the responses from five input motion sets
as described in section 4.2. All the study cases are as shown below.
Table 2. Analysis study cases

5 ANALYSIS RESULT

From the case study, the effects of each factor of interest on seismic responses were analyzed as follows. All
the results are presented in the form of 5% damping response spectra and the reduction ratios of the spectra
compared to the corresponding coherent analysis results.

5.1 Site condition effect

In most analysis cases, at high frequency, the response levels of EHR were higher than those of MHR as
shown in Fig. 6. And the response peaks tended to move into the high frequency range. This is thought to be
caused by the resonant characteristics between the input motion and the structure-rock media system. That is,
it is concluded that the harder the rock medium is, the higher the eigen frequency of the total system is.
In such cases, as shown in Table 3, incoherence effect (response reduction in high frequency range)
compared to the corresponding coherent response was more strengthened in EHR cases. For example, the
spectrum reduction ratios for Z-direction response of MHR-SSF-I07 at IWC were 6% (5~10 Hz range
averaged, same below), 23% (10~25 Hz), 34% (25~50 Hz), respectively, and those of EHR cases were 6%

5
(5~10 Hz), 26% (10~25 Hz), 39% (25~50 Hz). These trends also appear in other cases. This can be
explained that the coherency values applied to the EHR analysis cases are less than the MHR cases.

0.5 0.5

(g)...
0.4
(g)...

0.4

Acceleration
0.3
Acceleration

0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
0.1 1 10 100 0.1 1 10 100
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)

SSRS COH I05 I07 SSRS COH I05 I07

(a) Z-direction response of MHR-SSF at IWC (b) Z-direction response of EHR-SSF at IWC
Figure 6. Comparison of responses from site condition effect

5.2 Foundation embedment effect

From the SSI analyses considering wave incoherence, the embedment effect (lowering of peak level and
shifting to higher frequency range) appeared, not only from coherent motion but also from incoherent motion
as shown in Fig. 7. And judging from the spectrum reduction of SSF and GEF cases in Table 3, the aspect
and degree of the embedment effect were similar in hard-rock incoherence case. As a result, it is confirmed
that the foundation embedment effect can be superposed to the response of surface-supported foundation
regardless of coherency function model.

0.5 0.5
(g)...

0.4
(g)...

0.4
Acceleration

0.3
Acceleration

0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
0.1 1 10 100 0.1 1 10 100
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)

SSRS COH I05 I07 SSRS COH I05 I07

(a) Z-direction response of EHR-SSF at IWC (b) Z-direction response of EHR-GEF at IWC
Figure 7. Comparison of responses from foundation embedment effect

5.3 Coherency model effect

In all analysis cases, the seismic responses of I07 cases were placed between COH and I05 cases. This means
that the conventional incoherence model can produce unconservative results for hard-rock site. Considering
the conclusion of section 5.2 together, the surface-supported foundation design from coherent analysis can be
the most conservative case.
And the incoherence effect (response reduction in high frequency range) at containment shell was more
obvious in vertical direction than in horizontal direction as shown in Fig. 8. Specifically, the spectrum
reduction ratios for X-direction response of EHR-SSF-I07 at CSC were 4% (5~10 Hz), 6% (10~25 Hz), 16%

6
(25~50 Hz), respectively, and those for Z-direction response of same case were 8% (5~10 Hz), 25% (10~25
Hz), 26% (25~50 Hz). These phenomena are caused by the fact that the frequency of main peak for each
direction is different at the containment shell and the incoherence effect is more explicit in high frequency
range, generally over 10 Hz. This fact is more justified by the cases at other locations.

3.5 3.5

3 3
(g)...

(g)...
2.5 2.5
Acceleration

Acceleration
2 2

1.5 1.5

1 1

0.5 0.5

0 0
0.1 1 10 100 0.1 1 10 100
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)

SSRS COH I05 I07 SSRS COH I05 I07

(a) X-direction response of EHR-SSF at CSC (b) Z-direction response of EHR-SSF at CSC
Figure 8. Comparison of responses from coherency model effect

5.4 Rocking and torsion effect

From the comparison of responses at central and edge locations, the rocking and torsional movement can be
investigated. As might be expected, there was no significant torsional effect in all cases. This is thought to be
because the reactor building model is almost axisymmetric structure.
On the other hand, the Z-direction responses at edge locations were different from those at the central
locations on the same level. This means that the horizontal excitation can affect on the vertical response
considerably by rocking motion. In vertical direction, new peak response at the corresponding horizontal
peak frequency appeared as shown in Fig. 9. And the original peak response at the vertical eigen frequency
can be amplified by the horizontal motion. Incoherent analysis reflecting the 2007 hard-rock model showed a
similar trend, and the spectrum reduction ratios at edge locations were not different from those at the central
locations.

3 3

2.5 2.5
(g)...
(g)...

2 2
Acceleration
Acceleration

1.5 1.5

1 1

0.5 0.5

0 0
0.1 1 10 100 0.1 1 10 100
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)

SSRS COH I05 I07 SSRS COH I05 I07

(a) Z-direction response of EHR-GEF at CSC (b) Z-direction response of EHR-GEF at CSE
Figure 9. Comparison of responses from rocking and torsion effect

Table 3. Averaged spectrum reduction ratios compared to corresponding coherent cases (unit: Hz, %)

7
6 CONCLUSION

To investigate the response impact of new hard-rock incoherence model, various parametric studies were
performed. From SSI analysis results for a typical reactor building of NPP, this paper presents a couple of
findings about seismic response of the structure as follows.
(1) The seismic response at high frequency can be higher when the structure is placed on harder rock
medium. However, the incoherence effect (response reduction in high frequency range) can be more
strengthened in such cases.
(2) Foundation embedment effect (lowering of peak level and shifting to higher frequency range) can
also be expected in incoherent analysis by the new hard-rock model. And the degree of response reduction is
similar to the result of conventional incoherence model.
(3) The incoherence effect is the more obvious when the peak response appears at the higher frequency.
In engineering sense, the seismic responses of incoherent analysis by the new hard-rock incoherence model
are more conservative in comparison with those of the conventional incoherence model.
(4) The horizontal excitation can affect the vertical response considerably by rocking motion, and this
trend is also expectable in the hard-rock incoherence analysis.

REFERENCES

Abrahamson, N. A. 2007. Program on Technology Innovation: Effects of Spatial Incoherence on Seismic

Ground Motions. Electric Power Research Institute. Technical Report 1015110.
American Society of Civil Engineers. 1998. Seismic Analysis of Safety-Related Nuclear Structures and
Commentary. ASCE 4-98, P. 24-26.
International Civil Engineering Consultants, Inc. 1999. Computer Program INCOH Input Specification.
Luco, J. E. and Mita A. 1987. Response of Circular Foundation to Spatially random Ground Motion. Journal
of Engineering Mechanics, Vol. 113:1. P. 1-3.

8
Short S., Hardy G., Merz K. and Johnson J. 2005. Effect of Seismic Wave Incoherence on Foundation and
Building Response. Electric Power Research Institute. Technical Report 1012966.
Short S., Hardy G., Merz K. and Johnson J. 2007. Program on Technology Innovation: Validation of
CLASSI and SASSI Codes to Treat Seismic Wave Incoherence in Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) Analysis
of Nuclear Power Plant Structures. Electric Power Research Institute. Technical Report 1015111.
Tseng, W. S. and Lilhanand K. 1997. Soil-Structure Interaction Analysis Incorporating Spatial Incoherence
of Ground Motions. Electric Power Research Institute. Technical Report 102631.
US NRC. 1973. Regulatory Guide 1.60. Design Response Spectra for Seismic Design of Nuclear Power
Plants.