Quantitative failure metric for gravity dams

Quantitative failure monitoring is a critical tool for safety assessment of concrete dams. This includes damage occurrence, intensity, location, number, size, and propagation pattern. Such an assessment is essential for a quantifiable prioritization of repair and will thus reduce overall cost and improve safety. This paper will address this timely topic through the nonlinear transient analysis of a dam and failure will be ascertained through a multi‐scale damage index. A damage‐plastic model for mass concrete is used, Drucker‐Prager elasto‐plastic one for the foundation, and infinite elements are used for far‐field boundaries. Water‐dam interaction is accounted for through fluid finite elements. It is determined that the proposed damage indices can indeed provide a quantitative metric for the degree of failure in gravity dams in terms of the input dynamic motion. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aftershock seismic assessment taking into account postmainshock residual drifts

This paper introduces and evaluates a methodology for the aftershock seismic assessment of buildings taking explicitly into account residual drift demands after the mainshock (i.e., postmainshock residual interstory drifts, RIDR_o). The methodology is applied to a testbed four‐story steel moment‐resisting building designed with modern seismic design provisions when subjected to a set of near‐fault mainshock–aftershock seismic sequences that induce five levels of RIDR_o. Once the postmainshock residual drift is induced to the building model, a postmainshock incremental dynamic analysis is performed under each aftershock to obtain its collapse capacity and its capacity associated to demolition (i.e., the capacity to reach or exceed a 2% residual drift). The effect of additional sources of stiffness and strength (i.e., interior gravity frames and slab contribution) and the polarity of the aftershocks are examined in this study. Results of this investigation show that the collapse potential under aftershocks strongly depends on the modeling approach (i.e., the aftershock collapse potential is modified when additional sources of lateral stiffness and strength are included in the analytical model). Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the aftershock capacity associated to demolition (i.e., the aftershock collapse capacity associated to a residual interstory drift that leads to an imminent demolition) is lower than that of the aftershock collapse capacity, which mean that this parameter should be a better measure of the building residual capacity against aftershocks. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Digitized Database of Old Seismograms Recorder in Romania

The aim of this paper is to describe a managing system for a unique Romanian database of historical seismograms and complementary documentation (metadata) and its dissemination and analysis procedure. For this study, 5188 historical seismograms recorded between 1903 and 1957 by the Romanian seismological observatories (Bucharest-Filaret, Foc?ani, Bac?u, Vrincioaia, Câmpulung-Muscel, Ia?i) were used. In order to reconsider the historical instrumental data, the analog seismograms are converted to digital images and digital waveforms (digitization/ vectorialisation). First, we applied a careful scanning procedure of the seismograms and related material (seismic bulletins, station books, etc.). In a next step, the high resolution scanned seismograms will be processed to obtain the digital/numeric waveforms. We used a Colortrac Smartlf Cx40 scanner which provides images in TIFF or JPG format. For digitization the algorithm Teseo2 developed by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome (Italy), within the framework of the SISMOS Project, will be used.     

Soil–pile–structure interaction: experimental outcomes from shaking table tests

An effective way to study the complex seismic soil‐structure interaction phenomena is to investigate the response of physical scaled models in 1‐g or n‐g laboratory devices. The outcomes of an extensive experimental campaign carried out on scaled models by means of the shaking table of the Bristol Laboratory for Advanced Dynamics Engineering, University of Bristol, UK, are discussed in the present paper. The experimental model comprises an oscillator connected to a single or a group of piles embedded in a bi‐layer deposit. Different pile head conditions, that is free head and fixed head, several dynamic properties of the structure, including different masses at the top of the single degree of freedom system, excited by various input motions, e.g. white noise, sinedwells and natural earthquake strong motions recorded in Italy, have been tested. In the present work, the modal dynamic response of the soil–pile–structure system is assessed in terms of period elongation and system damping ratio. Furthermore, the effects of oscillator mass and pile head conditions on soil–pile response have been highlighted, when the harmonic input motions are considered. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Copula‐based joint probability function for PGA and CAV: a case study from Taiwan

This study aims to develop a joint probability function of peak ground acceleration (PGA) and cumulative absolute velocity (CAV) for the strong ground motion data from Taiwan. First, a total of 40,385 earthquake time histories are collected from the Taiwan Strong Motion Instrumentation Program. Then, the copula approach is introduced and applied to model the joint probability distribution of PGA and CAV. Finally, the correlation results using the PGA‐CAV empirical data and the normalized residuals are compared. The results indicate that there exists a strong positive correlation between PGA and CAV. For both the PGA and CAV empirical data and the normalized residuals, the multivariate lognormal distribution composed of two lognormal marginal distributions and the Gaussian copula provides adequate characterization of the PGA‐CAV joint distribution observed in Taiwan. This finding demonstrates the validity of the conventional two‐step approach for developing empirical ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) of multiple ground motion parameters from the copula viewpoint. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Offshore Aggregates Resources on the Northern Continental Shelf of the East China Sea

A large‐scale survey for offshore aggregates is carried out on the northern shelf of the East China Sea. Results show that most of them are directly exposed in the Yangtze Shoal and the linear sand ridges system at water depths 25–55 m and 60–120 m, respectively. The components of these deposits belong to fine aggregates in terms of the fineness modulus. The potential resources are as high as 147.8 × 10¹² kg for the Yangtze Shoal yet only 36.68 × 10¹² kg for the sand ridges area, respectively. A preliminary feasibility analysis suggests that the Yangtze Shoal is suitable for dredging under the present conditions of technology and economy.