Shaking Table Test On Dynamic Response of Bridge Pile Foundation Near Fault Under Strong Earthquake

Taking Puqian bridge as the prototype, a 1:30-scale pile-soil-fault interaction model was established. Through the shaking table test, the difference of dynamic response of pile foundation on both sides of fault under 0.15~0.60g ground motion intensity was studied. The pile acceleration, pile top relative displacement, and pile bending moment on both sides of the fault are compared respectively. Research results showed that under the action of a strong earthquake, the pile foundation on the hanging wall was greatly affected by ground motion, and “the hanging wall effect” was significant. As the ground motion intensity increased, the “hanging wall effect” of the pile foundation was more obvious. Combined with the fundamental frequency response and the test phenomenon, when ground motions intensity was strong, cracks appeared near the joint of pile top and platform, soil interface, and bedrock surface. When building a bridge pile foundation near the fault, the seismic design of the pile foundation on the hanging wall of the fault is mainly considered.

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.

Analysis of Strong Ground Motion Characterization in the 2013 Lushan Earthquake

Lushan earthquake on 20th April, 2013 was another thrust fault earthquake occurred at Longmen Mountain Fault Zone after 2008 Wenchuan Ms8.0 earthquake. Based on ground motion attenuation model, this paper has chosen 45 strong motion records with rupture distance less than 200km, to analyze the hanging wall effect, topographic effect and rupture directivity effect of Lushan earthquake. The results show that hanging wall effect in Lushan earthquake was not obvious as 2008 Wenchuan earthquake; ground motion in mountain areas attenuated with increasing rupture distance more quickly than that in plain areas; rupture directivity effect is obvious for two components of horizontal ground motion, which are fault-perpendicular and fault-parallel components. PGA in the forward rupture area is larger than those in the backward rupture area. With the period increased, the gap between backward and forward rupture area become small, and finally PGD in backward rupture area is greater than those in the forward rupture area.

Effects of the hanging wall and footwall on ground motions recorded during the Northridge earthquake

Systematic differences in ground motion on the hanging wall and footwall during the Northridge earthquake are evaluated using empirical data. An empirical model for the hanging-wall effect is developed for the Northridge earthquake. This empirical model results in up to a 50% increase in peak horizontal accelerations on the hanging wall over the distance range of 10 to 20 km relative to the median attenuation for the Northridge earthquake. In contrast, the peak accelerations on the footwall are not significantly different from the median attenuation over this distance range. Recordings from other reverse events show a similar trend of an increase in the peak accelerations on the hanging wall, indicating that this systematic difference in hanging-wall peak accelerations is likely to be observed in future reverse events.