Earthquake-induced displacements of gravity retaining walls and anchor-reinforced slopes

This paper examines in terms of seismic performance, the effectiveness of anchor reinforcement against gravity retaining walls used to stabilize a dry homogenous fill slope in earthquake-prone environment. Both analyzed stabilizing measures have the same design yield acceleration estimated from a limit equilibrium approach. The earthquake-induced displacements are calculated using a sliding block formulation of the equation of motion. Sliding failure along the base of the gravity retaining wall and rotational failure of the soil active wedge behind the wall, as well as rotational failure of the slide mass of the anchor-reinforced slope were considered in the present formulation. For the specific characteristics of the analyzed fill slope and input horizontal ground motion, the slope reinforced with anchors appears to experience vertical and horizontal seismic displacements at slope crest smaller by 12% and respectively, 32% than the vertical and horizontal earthquake-induced deformations estimated at the top of the active wedge behind the gravity retaining wall.     

A method for predicting co-seismic displacements of slopes for landslide hazard zonation

Landslide hazard zonation based on co-seismic slope displacements has been applied in many regions. As there are a large number of slopes to be analyzed and it is impossible to obtain actual acceleration time histories for each of these slopes, the co-seismic displacements are often estimated by some simple empirical formulas, which are derived through regression analysis based on a certain set of acceleration time histories and can only be validly applied to regions similar to where the time history data were recorded. In this paper, treating the ground motion as a random process, a formula for calculating the expected value of Newmark displacement with the acceleration amplitude spectrum as input is derived. Since the formula is theoretically equivalent to the double integration procedure in a rigorous Newmark analysis, which has also been verified by careful comparisons of the calculated results, it can be applied for different regions. By combining the formula with ground motion simulations, a new method for estimating co-seismic slope displacements is proposed. The application of the method in the seriously struck area by Wenchuan earthquake shows that it is an effective tool for predicting co-seismic slope displacements as the predicted landslide distribution by using its estimated results agrees reasonably with the actual observations.     

Probabilistic evaluation of seismically induced permanent deformation of slopes

A probabilistic approach that can systematically model various sources of uncertainty involved in the assessment of seismically induced permanent deformations of slopes is presented. This approach incorporates probabilistic concepts into the classical-limit equilibrium and Newmark-type deformation analysis and the risk of damage is then computed by Monte Carlo simulations. The spatial variability of the material properties and the uncertainty arising from insufficient information are treated in the framework of random fields. The uncertainty of seismic loading is modeled by generating a large series of hazard-compatible artificial motions. This approach provides a consistent level of risk within the time period of interest. The results of the case analyses show that the uncertainty of the soil properties can have a significant impact on the computed risk of failure for a slope with spatially correlated soil properties exposed to relatively low levels of seismic hazard (RMS<0.1–0.2 g); however, it appears to have little impact on the computed risk if the slope is exposed to relatively high hazard levels (RMS>0.1–0.2 g).     

Earthquake induced hydrodynamic pressure on axisymmetric offshore structures

The horizontal earthquake induced hydrodynamic pressure acting on the surface of axisymmetric offshore and coastal structures is explored. A semi-analytical and semi-numerical approach based on the use of a complete and non-singular set of Trefftz functions is developed. Using this method, one can model accurately the compressibility of the sea water and gravity waves on the water surface. The proposed method shows a relatively simple and efficient approach. This is because the number of degrees of freedom in the matrix equation depends only on the number of selected Trefftz functions and because the discretization of the fluid domain into boundary elements is restricted to the structural surface only. This method is also easy to apply in engineering analysis of hydrodynamic pressure induced by an actual earthquake acceleration. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the results obtained from this method. Several special interesting topics, such as the effects of the water compressibility, the gravity waves on the water surface and the geometrical shape of the structural surface, are also discussed.     

Extracting earthquake induced Lagrangian ground displacements and their implication for source inversion analysis

Seismographs are crucial for understanding a variety of aspects of earthquake-inflicted property damage and human suffering. However, strong ground motion records are often missing or very sparsely available especially in the developing countries, discouraging all attempts for rational rehabilitations. Something that should not be forgotten in talking about rehabilitations is that a large earthquake often causes long lasting geotechnical problems, in which terrain changes are to be thoroughly studied. A method is presented here to extract Lagrangian ground displacements from an available set of aerial/satellite data capturing sub-aerial topography. Its application to the Mid-Niigata Prefecture Earthquake, a well recorded and documented seismic event, has shown good correlation with the field measurements and/or observations. An inversion analysis is carried out with the predetermined static ground surface displacements to determine the spatial distribution of slips on fault rupture planes for known fault geometry.     

Earthquake induced pounding between adjacent buildings considering soil-structure interaction

Many closely located adjacent buildings have suffered from pounding during past earthquakes because they vibrated out of phase.Furthermore,buildings are usually constructed on soil;hence,there are interactions between the buildings and the underlying soil that should also be considered.This paper examines both the interaction between adjacent buildings due to pounding and the interaction between the buildings through the soil as they affect the buildings’ seismic responses.The developed model consists of adjacent shear buildings resting on a discrete soil model and a linear viscoelastic contact force model that connects the buildings during pounding.The seismic responses of adjacent buildings due to ground accelerations are obtained for two conditions:fixed-based(FB) and structure-soil-structure interaction(SSSI).The results indicate that pounding worsens the buildings’ condition because their seismic responses are amplified after pounding.Moreover,the underlying soil negatively impacts the buildings’ seismic responses during pounding because the ratio of their seismic response under SSSI conditions with pounding to those without pounding is greater than that of the FB condition.     

Earthquake-induced ground displacements

The paper brings up to date and amplifies earlier work on earthquake-induced ground displacements using near-field strong-motion records, improved processing procedures and a homogenizing treatment of the seismological parameters. A review of upper bound limits to seismic displacements is given and a predictive procedure is examined that allows the probabilistic assessment of the likelihood of exceedance of predicted displacements to be made in the near field of earthquakes in the magnitude range 6.6 to 7.3. Using a considerable number of unscaled ground motions obtained at source distances of less than half of the source dimensions, graphs and formulae are derived that allow the assessment of permanent displacements of foundations and slopes as a function of the critical acceleration ratio.     

Comparison between predictions using different simplified Newmarks' block-on-plane models and field values of earthquake induced displacements

The study is concerned with the assessment of simplified Newmarks' block-on-plane models available in the literature for evaluating the permanent earthquake induced displacements of cut slopes and embankments, and the recommendation of a well-verified model/procedure. For this purpose, incidents of earthquake induced displacements of geotechnical structures, were collected from worldwide literatures and used in the study. Actual values of displacements were compared with predictions using different models.Based on the analyses, interpretations and discussions in this study, it was concluded that the Nadim and Whitman method (Nadim F, Whitman RV. Journal of the Geotechnical Engineering Division, ASCE 1983;109(GT7):915–931) is the most accurate method for obtaining the earthquake induced displacement. The correlation coefficient between predicted values using the Nadim and Whitman method and the actual recorded ones for geotechnical structures was 0.770; the highest among correlation coefficients for other methods.     

Predicting torsion‐induced lateral displacements for pushover analysis: Influence of torsional system characteristics

The increasing popularity of simplified nonlinear methods in seismic design has recently led to many proposals for procedures aimed at extending pushover analysis to plan asymmetric structures. In terms of practical applications, one particularly promising approach is based on combining pushover analysis of a 3D structural model with the results of linear (modal) dynamic analysis. The effectiveness of such procedure, however, is contingent on one fundamental requirement: the elastic prediction of the envelope of lateral displacements must be conservative with respect to the actual inelastic one. This paper aims at verifying the above assumption through an extensive parametric analysis conducted with simplified single‐storey models. The main structural parameters influencing torsional response in the elastic and inelastic range of behaviour are varied, while devoting special attention to the system stiffness eccentricity and radius. The analysis clarifies the main features of inelastic torsional response of different types of building structures; in this manner, it is found that the above‐mentioned method is generally suitable for structures characterized by moderate to large torsional stiffness, whereas it cannot be recommended for extremely torsionally stiff structures, as their inelastic torsional response almost always exceeds the elastic one. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

大桥水库MS4.6级诱发地震的初步研究

2002年3月3日大桥水库诱发了Ms4．6级水库地震，其发震构造是安宁河东支断裂近傍具有正断层性质的一个分支断裂。据大桥台网7年多库区地震观测事件记录，地震空间分布上水体附近有一个明显的活跃过程，大坝上游发生小震群，大坝下游发生主震序列。地震的震源深度在蓄水前后有明显变化。4．6级地震的震源机制解的主压应力轴方位和倾角与大多数活动断裂上的地震有明显的差别，主压应力轴的倾角与其它的水库地震相比也存在较大差别。     

Estimation of constant-damage residual displacements in terms of maximum inelastic displacements for SDOF structures

Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering - This paper investigates the constant-damage residual displacement ratios Cr (i.e., the ratio of the residual displacement in terms of the maximum inelastic...     

Attenuation of earthquake-induced ground displacements

Attenuation laws predicting induced displacements generated by earthquakes of different magnitude at different distances as a function of the critical acceleration ratio of the foundation materials have been derived from a substantial data set of strong-motion records obtained worldwide.     

Earthquake induced ground strains in the presence of strong lateral soil heterogeneities

Transient ground strains are recognized to govern the response of buried elongated structures, such as pipelines and tunnels, under seismic wave propagation. Since a direct measure of ground strains is not generally available, simplified formulas relating peak ground strain to peak ground velocity, and based on 1D wave propagation theory in homogeneous media, are typically used for seismic design. Although they are adopted by most of the available technical guidelines, the use of these formulas may be questionable in complex realistic situations as either in the presence of strong lateral discontinuities, or in the epicentral area of large earthquakes, or in sites where relevant site amplification effects and spatial incoherency of ground motion are expected. To provide a contribution to overcome the previous limitations, a simplified formula relating peak ground longitudinal strain to peak ground velocity is proposed in this paper, as a function of the geometrical and dynamic parameters which have the major influence on strain evaluation. The formula has been obtained under small-strain assumptions, so that it can reasonably be applied under linear or moderately non-linear soil behaviour. The adequacy of this formula in the most common case of vertically propagating S-waves has been checked against 2D numerical solutions by Spectral Elements (SE) for representative geological cross-sections in Parkway Valley (New Zealand) and in the cities of Catania (Italy) and Thessaloniki (Greece). The shear strain and the longitudinal strain variability with depth is also investigated, through some qualitative examples and comparisons with analytical formulas.     

Earthquake ground motion modeling of induced seismicity in the Groningen gas field

A physics‐based numerical approach is used to characterize earthquake ground motion due to induced seismicity in the Groningen gas field and to improve empirical ground motion models for seismic hazard and risk assessment. To this end, a large‐scale (20 km × 20 km) heterogeneous 3D seismic wave propagation model for the Groningen area is constructed, based on the significant bulk of available geological, geophysical, geotechnical, and seismological data. Results of physics‐based numerical simulations are validated against the ground motion recordings of the January 8, 2018, M_L 3.4 Zeerijp earthquake. Taking advantage of suitable models of slip time functions at the seismic source and of the detailed geophysical model, the numerical simulations are found to reproduce accurately the observed features of ground motions at epicentral distances less than 10 km, in a broad frequency range, up to about 8 Hz. A sensitivity analysis is also addressed to discuss the impact of 3D underground geological features, the stochastic variability of seismic velocities and the frequency dependence of the quality factor. Amongst others, results point out some key features related to 3D seismic wave propagation, such as the magnitude and distance dependence of site amplification functions, that may be relevant to the improvement of the empirical models for earthquake ground motion prediction.     

Seismic displacements of torsionally unbalanced buildings

A parametric study is carried out to evaluate the seismic displacements at the flexible edge of torsionally unbalanced (TU) structural systems. Guidelines are provided to estimate these displacements so that they can be incorporated in the formulation of the displacement-based seismic design approach for the design of TU buildings. The ability of three code procedures to estimate the flexible-edge displacement is examined to show that not all procedures lead to conservative estimates. Finally, it is shown that elastic spectrum analysis incorporating accidental torsion effect is a viable means to estimate the flexible-edge displacements.     

Scaling of residual displacements in terms of elastic and inelastic spectral displacements for existing SDOF systems

Structures undergoing inelastic displacements during earthquake ground motions are known to sustain some amount of residual displacements, which may make them unusable or unsafe. In this study an attempt is made to estimate residual displacements for elastic-perfectly-plastic single-degree-of-freedom oscillators with a given lateral strength ratio. It is observed in the case of a class of ground motions that there are no trends in the dependence of residual displacement on the temporal features of the ground motion, and thus any estimation of residual displacements should be carried out only in the statistical sense. Statistical estimation of residual displacement spectrum via normalization with respect to inelastic or elastic spectral displacements is considered, and it is found that normalization with respect to inelastic spectral displacements is preferable. Expressions for residual displacement spectra are proposed for both types of normalizations and for the givenlateral-strength-ratio type oscillators.     

Primeval displacements of the lunar pole

The hypothesis that the magnetic field which magnetized the lunar crust was generated by the dynamo process in a small fluid iron core can now be tested. Because the Coriolis force was a dominant term in the equations of motion in this core, the mean lunar field was aligned along the ancient axis of rotation. From Hood's modelling of the magnetic anomalies in the lunar crust, mapped by the Apollo 15 and 16 subsatellites, the palaeo-directions of this field have been determined. From them, palaeopole positions have been determined and are found to be grouped with respect to age. The palaeoequators corresponding to ages 4 Ga and 3.85 Ga show close relationships with the circular maria or mascons on the near side and multi-ring basins of corresponding age on the far side. The polar displacements indicated from lunar palaeomagnetism can be explained by the changes in the moment of inertia tensor consequent on the excavation and later flooding of these circular mare. Small moons in the primeval Earth-Moon system are inferred to be the impacting bodies.     

Evaluation of seismic displacements of quay walls

A new simplified dynamic analysis method is proposed to predict the seismic sliding displacement of quay walls by considering the variation of wall thrust, which is influenced by the excess pore pressure developed in backfill during earthquakes. The method uses the Newmark sliding block concept and the variable yield acceleration, which varies according to the wall thrust, to calculate the quay wall displacement.A series of 1 g shaking table tests were executed to verify the applicability of the proposed method, and a parametric study was performed. The shaking table tests verified that the proposed method properly predicts the wall displacement, and the parametric study showed that the evaluation of a realistic wall displacement is as important as the analysis of liquefaction potential for judging the stability of quay walls.     

印尼8.7级大震前后GPS观测站的地壳水平与垂直位移时间序列结果

利用IGS及中国地壳运动观测网络GPS连续观测站6年多时间的观测结果, 以中国大陆东部的稳定点组作为水平位移与垂直位移解的参考基准, 得到了2004年12月26日印尼苏门答腊8.7级与2005年3月28日8.5级大震前后GPS观测站的地壳水平及垂直位移时间序列的结果。 尽管所采用的GPS站点少, 且分布范围大, 但仍可看到在如此大的地震震前、 同震与震后地壳运动的特征, 为今后观测研究提供了十分有意义的结果。 文中所采用稳定点组基准有效消除水平位移场的平移与旋转, 而局部椭球面的不平性对计算区域地壳运动结果, 特别是对垂直位移的影响很小, 说明了位移解所描述的大范围区域位移场是合理的。 这两次地震的同震水平位移及震后的垂直位移影响量级达数厘米, 范围达远离8.7级地震震中4500 km之外, 甚至更远。