The Advances and Prospects of Research on Earthquake Engineering at IEM

This paper describes briefly the recent advances and acievements of the research projects conducted by the Institute of Engineering Mechanics(IEM) in the period of the Ninth Five-Year Plan(1995-2000) with the support of the China Seismological Bureau(CSB),These projects are related with key problems in the field of earthquake engineering.They are:development of the methods for determining earthquake resistant design load level,study on mechanisms of earthquake damage to buildings.development of new technology of base isolation,and study on earthquake damage prediction and seismic losss assessment methods.Through these studies,quite a number of problems have een solved and some of them have een applied in earthquake engineering design and practice.     

Study on the characteristics of rock failure strain and acoustic emission field for two parallelling faults with the same slip direction including asperities

Introduction Concerning about research on grouped-earthquake seismogenic and occurrence, at present it is only limited on the stage of the theoretical analysis and numerical model. For instance, ZHANG (1987) simulated the grouped-earthquake generation and physical mechanism making use of spring-block principle. Applying for non-linear dynamic model, referring to Chinese continental plate as object, LI, et al (1997) performed the numerical simulation on the seismogenic and occurring of group…     

An scientific evaluation of annual earthquake prediction ability

Introduction There have been nearly 40 years for earthquake prediction since the research on earthquake prediction was carried out in plan by some advanced countries since 1960s. For the hard long process of earthquake prediction, Alen, American famous scientist and former president of the evaluation commission of earthquake prediction in California, USA, said that the difficulty of earthquake prediction is more than the expected and the practical progress of earthquake prediction is more sl…     

Natural hydraulic cracking: numerical model and sensitivity study

Natural hydrofracturing caused by overpressure plays an important role in geopressure evolution and hydrocarbon migration in petroliferous basins. Its mechanism is quite well understood in the case of artificial hydraulic fracturing triggered by high-pressure fluid injection in a well. This is not so for natural hydraulic fracturing which is assumed to initiate as micro-cracks with large influence on the permeability of the medium. The mechanism of natural hydraulic cracking, triggered by increasing pore pressure during geological periods, is studied using a fracturing model coupled to the physical processes occurring during basin evolution. In this model, the hydraulic cracking threshold is assumed to lie between the classical failure limit and the beginning of dilatancy. Fluid pressure evolution is calculated iteratively in order to allow dynamic adjustment of permeability so that the fracturing limit is always preserved. The increase of permeability is interpreted on the basis of equivalent fractures. It is found that fracturing is very efficient to keep a stress level at the rock’s hydraulic cracking limit: a fracture permeability one order of magnitude larger than the intrinsic permeability of the rock would be enough. Observations reported from actual basins and model results strongly suggest that natural hydraulic cracking occurs continuously to keep the pressure at the fracturing limit under relaxed stress conditions.     

Models of passive margin inversion: implications for the Rhenohercynian fold-and-thrust belt, Belgium and Germany

Positive tectonic inversion is related to the transmission of compressional stresses along a décollement into the foreland of an orogenic zone. This stress and strain concentration in regions remote from the main orogenic front is commonly related to the presence of pre-existing rheological heterogeneities such as normal syn-depositional faults. During inversion, these pre-existing normal faults are reactivated as reverse faults. Tectonic inversion in the Rhenohercynian fold-and-thrust belt during the Variscan Orogeny shows that inversion is likely synchronous with the onset of collision in the hinterland. Here, we present the results of a simplified thermo-mechanical model (STM) which allows one to study strain partitioning between two orogenic zones. We show that, if the two orogenic zones have the same mechanical properties, the viscosity of the décollement, which links them, controls the initial strain partitioning. During subsequent finite shortening, erosional processes determine the partitioning of strain rate. The presence of a weak structure in the inverted zone and of a low-viscosity décollement leads to initial strain concentration in the inverted track rather than in the collision zone and a progressive decrease in strain partitioning between the two orogenic zones. The STM results are in good agreement with results of a 2D finite-element model. We conclude that, in the western part of the Rhenohercynian Massif, simultaneous uplift and deformation within the Mid-German Crystalline Rise (the main collision zone) and the Ardenne Anticlinorium (the inverted zone) lead to interpreting this orogenic event as a case of vice tectonic rather than the propagation of a ‘wave of folding’ towards the Variscan front, as suggested by previous authors.