Within- and Between-Event Variabilities of Strong-Velocity Pulses of Moderate Earthquakes within Dense Seismic Arrays

ABSTRACT Ground motion with strong-velocity pulses can cause significant damage to buildings and structures at certain periods; hence, knowing the period and velocity amplitude of such pulses is critical for earthquake structural engineering. However, the physical factors relating the scaling of pulse periods with magnitude are poorly understood. In this study, we investigate moderate but damaging earthquakes (Mw 6–7) and characterize ground-motion pulses using the method of Shahi and Baker (2014) while considering the potential static-offset effects. We confirm that the within-event variability of the pulses is large. The identified pulses in this study are mostly from strike-slip-like earthquakes. We further perform simulations using the frequency–wavenumber algorithm to investigate the causes of the variability of the pulse periods within and between events for moderate strike-slip earthquakes. We test the effect of fault dips, and the impact of the asperity locations and sizes. The simulations reveal that the asperity properties have a high impact on the pulse periods and amplitudes at nearby stations. Our results emphasize the importance of asperity characteristics, in addition to earthquake magnitudes for the occurrence and properties of pulses produced by the forward directivity effect. We finally quantify and discuss within- and between-event variabilities of pulse properties at short distances.

Subtraction Analysis for Predicting the Propagation Effects of Aircraft Noise

In 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration and Volpe National Transportation System Center conducted a series of acoustic measurements with a propeller driven aircraft operating in the regions near Houston, Texas. The recorded data on octave band sound levels, aircraft locations, temperature and wind speed profiles were used in the current study to quantify the uncertainties for predicting the propagation effects of aircraft noise. Use of the Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT) was explored for its accuracy and validity in real world scenarios offered by the dataset. The sound exposure level (SEL) data for each section of a flight path was used instead of the time history data for reducing the directivity effect of the sound source due to the change in its relative positions with the receivers. A subtraction-based method was introduced to analyze the propagation effect in which the SELs between two receiver locations were compared. The use of the subtraction method reduces the possible influences of the sound power variations along the flight paths. The measured data for a spiral and a level flight event were presented and the AEDT predictions on the propagation effects were examined in this paper.

Impulsive Signals Produced by Earthquakes in Italy and Their Potential Relation with Site Effects and Structural Damage

Near fault seismic records may contain impulsive motions in velocity-time history. The seismic records can be identified as impulsive and non-impulsive depending on the features that their waveforms have. These motions can be an indicator of directivity or fling step effect, and they may cause dangerous effects on structures; for this reason, there is increasing attention on this subject in the last years. In this study, we collect the major earthquakes in Italy, with a magnitude large or equal to Mw 5.0, and identify the impulsive motions recorded by seismic stations. We correlate impulsive motions with directivity and fling step effects. We find that most earthquakes produced impulsive signals due to the directivity effect, though those at close stations to the 30 October 2016 Amatrice earthquake might be generated by the fling step effect. Starting from the analyzed impulses, we discuss on the potential influence of site effects on impulsive signals and suggest a characterization based on the main displacement directions of the impulsive horizontal displacements. Finally, we discuss on the damage of three churches in Emilia, which were subject to impulsive ground motion, underlying in a qualitative way, how the characteristics of the pulses may have had influences the structural response of the façades.

Near-Fault Ground Motion Influence on the Seismic Responses of a Structure with Viscous Dampers considering SSI Effect

This paper studies the influence of the characteristics of the near-fault ground motion on the seismic responses of the structure with energy dissipation devices including soil-structure interaction (SSI). A ten-story reinforced concrete frame rested on soft site is introduced, and the viscous dampers added in the frame are designed. The numerical analysis method of the soil-structure system with viscous dampers is established through ANSYS program. In addition, the response spectra of the main characteristics of the near-fault ground motion, like hanging wall effect, velocity pulse-like effect, and forward-directivity effect, are investigated carefully to learn the features of spectra energy distribution. And then, the dynamic time-history analysis is performed on the SSI system with and without viscous dampers subjected to the selected near-fault ground motion. The study reveals that the seismic responses of the structure subjected to near-fault ground motion with hanging wall effect are obviously larger than those of the footwall effect, indicating the distinct hanging wall effects on the structural dynamic responses. In addition, the performance of the structure with viscous dampers is more influenced by the ground motion containing fling-step effect than that with forward-directivity effect. Moreover, the influence of the horizontal component of forward-directivity ground motion on the seismic responses of the structure is more obvious than that of parallel component ground motion. Consequently, the hanging wall effect, velocity pulse, and horizontal component in forward-directivity effect of the near-fault ground motion have distinct influence on the seismic responses of the structure with energy dissipation devices considering SSI effect, providing insight towards the performance-based seismic design of buildings rested at the near-fault sites considering the seismic SSI effect.

Near-fault seismic risk assessment of simply supported bridges

Bridges tend to sustain excessive seismic demand (e.g. displacement) under pulse-like ground motions attributing to the effect of forward directivity, which is of high likely to occur at locations near the fault rupture. This study tries to incorporate the pulse effect into the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) and probabilistic seismic demand analysis (PSDA) framework, which are combined to quantify the risk of earthquake-induced damage in the near-fault location. The near-fault PSDA and PSHA are established and connected conditioned on peak ground velocity (PGV). Four sets of typical simply supported bridge types with the varying heights, representing the range of the period, are simulated by taking account the strength and stiffness degradation associated with material and geometry nonlinearity. The detailed investigation of the near-fault seismic risk is performed for these bridge models located at representative near-fault sites namely 5, 10, 15, and 20 km, respectively. The results reveal that near-field directivity effect strongly impacts the bridge damage risk with the observation of higher risk at the closer site; the bridges with the period of approximately Tp/2(pulse period) tend to experience the highest seismic risk, and the relative vulnerability of four bridge types is also compared.

Rapid Detection of Earthquake Rupture Directivity Using Strong Ground Motion Data in Taiwan

<p>In the past decade, there have been several disaster earthquakes occurred in Taiwan.<br>From the observed data of the disaster earthquakes, the stations located in the source<br>rupture direction have obvious directivity pulses, and the distribution of the earthquake<br>disaster is related to the peak ground velocity. Therefore, how to use a large and high-<br>dense seismic database to develop a near-real-time detection system on the earthquake<br>rupture directivity, which is a very important task in Taiwan. In this study, we determine<br>the earthquake rupture directivity using near-field velocity data from 1991 to 2018, which<br>were collected under the Taiwan Strong Motion Instrument Program (TSMIP). The used<br>method is mainly constructed in the interpolation of the peak-ground-velocity map and<br>the directional attenuation regression analysis. Through the analysis of moderate-to-large<br>magnitude (M L > 5.5) seismic events, the source rupture directivity can be detected<br>effectively and quickly by the applied method. The detection results are also comparable<br>with those from the previous source studies. We also find out a linear relationship between<br>the directivity effect and earthquake magnitude. Since the TSMIP station may provide<br>real-time services in the future, the detection system proposed by this research can quickly<br>provide disaster prediction information, which is of great importance for earthquake<br>emergency response and hazard mitigation.</p>