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A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Civil Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 April 2021) | Viewed by 27132

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Dr. Antonio Cavallaro

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Guest Editor

Italian National Research Council, Institute of Cultural Heritage Sciences, Palazzo Ingrassia, Via Biblioteca, 4, 95124 Catania, Italy
Interests: soil mechanics; laboratory and in situ tests; local amplification; seismic hazard; seismic zonation; soil liquefaction
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Safety against earthquake hazards has two aspects: structural safety against potentially destructive dynamic forces and site safety related to geotechnical phenomena such as amplification, landsliding, and soil liquefaction. Thus, the correct evaluation of seismic hazard is highly affected by risk factors due to the geological nature and geotechnical properties of soils. The effects of local geotechnical conditions on damages suffered by buildings under seismic conditions has been widely recognized, as it is demonstrated by the Manual for Zonation on Seismic Geotechnical Hazards (1993) edited by the International Society for Soil Mechanics. The evaluation of local amplification effects may be carried out by means of either rigorous complex methods of analysis or qualitative procedures. In response to these new developments, several attempts have been made to identify and appraise geotechnical hazards and to represent them in the form of zoning maps, in which locations or zones with different levels of hazard potential are identified. Contributions for the Special Issue can include accepted approaches for assessing three kinds of geotechnical phenomena: local ground response, slope instability, and liquefaction. Particularly, zonation for local ground response is a fundamental issue to prevent seismic disasters since, as lessons of past earthquakes teach, local amplification has been a major cause of damage to buildings.

Dr. Antonio Cavallaro
Guest Editor

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Keywords

earthquake hazards
amplification
landsliding
soil liquefaction
zoning maps

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 5356 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Vertical to Horizontal UHS Ratios for Low to Medium Seismicity Regions with Deep Soil atop Deep Geological Sediments—An Example of the City of Osijek, Croatia

by Borko Đ. Bulajić, Marijana Hadzima-Nyarko and Gordana Pavić

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(15), 6782; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11156782 - 23 Jul 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1883

Abstract

The severity of vertical seismic ground motions is often factored into design regulations as a component of their horizontal counterparts. Furthermore, most design codes, including Eurocode 8, ignore the impact of local soil on vertical spectra. This paper investigates vertical pseudo-absolute acceleration spectral estimates, as well as the ratios of spectral estimates for strong motion in vertical and horizontal directions, for low to medium seismicity regions with deep local soil and deep geological sediments beneath the local soil. The case study region encompasses the city of Osijek in Croatia. New regional frequency-dependent empirical scaling equations are derived for the vertical spectra. According to these equations, for a 0.3 s spectral amplitude at deep soils atop deep geological sediments compared to the rock sites, the maximum amplification is 1.48 times. The spectra of vertical components of various real strong motions recorded in the surrounding region are compared to the empirical vertical response spectra. The new empirical equations are used to construct a Uniform Hazard Spectra for Osijek. The ratios of vertical to horizontal Uniform Hazard Spectra are generated, examined, and compared to Eurocode 8 recommendations. All the results show that local soil and deep geology conditions have a significant impact on vertical ground motions. The results also show that for deep soils atop deep geological strata, Eurocode 8 can underestimate the vertical to horizontal spectral ratios by a factor of three for Type 2 spectra while overestimating them by a factor of two for Type 1 spectra. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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16 pages, 7648 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Horizontal UHS Amplitudes for Regions with Deep Soil Atop Deep Geological Sediments—An Example of Osijek, Croatia

by Borko Đ. Bulajić, Marijana Hadzima-Nyarko and Gordana Pavić

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(14), 6296; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11146296 - 7 Jul 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1908

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate how UHS-based seismic microzonation can be applied in low-to-medium seismicity areas with deep local soil and deep geological deposits under the local soil. The case study area surrounds the city of Osijek, Croatia, which is in the south–central region of the Pannonian Basin. New frequency-dependent scaling equations are derived, and the empirical response spectra are compared to the spectra of real strong motions in the surrounding region. Empirical calculations for deep soil atop deep geological strata show a 37% reduction in short-period spectral amplitudes when compared to rock locations. This demonstrates that local soil amplification is mitigated by energy dissipation in deep soils. For vibration periods longer than 0.3 s, spectral amplitudes are being amplified. This amplification goes up to 2.37 times for vibration periods around 0.5 s. UHS spectra for Osijek are computed using regional seismicity estimates, data on local soil and deeper geological surroundings, and newly created regional empirical equations for scaling various spectral amplitudes. UHS amplitudes for Osijek are also compared to the Eurocode 8 spectra for ground type C. The results show that ratios of the maximum UHS amplitudes to PGA values are up to 46% larger than the corresponding 2.5 factor that is recommended by Eurocode 8 for horizontal spectra. The UHS results might be viewed as preliminary for Osijek and regions with similar seismicity and local soil and deep geology conditions. When the number of regional strong-motion records grows many times beyond what it is currently, it will be feasible to properly calibrate the scaling equations, resulting in more reliable and long-term UHS estimations for the area under consideration. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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10 pages, 3974 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Large-Scale Model of Lateral Pressure on a Buried Pipeline in Medium Dense Sand

by Hamzh Alarifi, Hisham Mohamad, Nor Faridah Nordin, Muhammad Yusoff, Aminu Darda’u Rafindadi and Budijanto Widjaja

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(12), 5554; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11125554 - 16 Jun 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2663

Abstract

Modern countries utilise buried pipelines for the long-distance transportation of water, oil, and gas due to their efficiency and continuity of delivery to receiving locations. Due to soil movements such as landslides, excessive earth pressure imposed on buried pipelines causes damage and, consequently, leaking of liquids, gases or other harmful effluents into the soil, groundwater, and atmosphere. By using a large-scale physical model, the lateral pipeline–soil interaction in sandy soil was researched. This study investigated the stress distribution on a buried pipe induced by lateral soil displacement. The external forces on the buried pipe caused by the surrounding soil motion were measured using earth pressure cells installed in the active zone along the pipeline. Additionally, visual inspection of ground deformation patterns on the surface, including tensile cracks, above a shallow-buried pipeline subjected to lateral soil movement was reported. The results revealed that lateral soil movement has a potency effect on buried pipelines. The findings also indicated that the highest stresses occur at the unstable soil boundaries prior to reaching the soil’s peak strength. After observing the soil surface’s rupture, most of the stress increments were concentrated in the middle section of the pipe. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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23 pages, 10450 KiB

Open AccessArticle

2-D Seismic Response Analysis of a Slope in the Tyrrhenian Area (Italy)

by Antonio Cavallaro, Antonio Ferraro, Salvatore Grasso and Antonio Puccia

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(7), 3180; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11073180 - 2 Apr 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2206

Abstract

The Caronia area is located in the Tyrrhenian north-eastern sector of Sicily (Italy). Starting in 2010, attention focused on the study of landslides phenomena that occurred in this area, which caused significant economic damage to buildings and infrastructures and loss of productive activities. The site is characterized by geotechnical, geological and morphological heterogeneity, and for this reason the site is particularly prone to seismic topographic amplification effects. In this paper, the authors carried out numerical studies focused on the topographic seismic effect evaluation concerning the slope affected by the landslide phenomena. For this site, geotechnical characterization was available concerning both in-situ and laboratory tests; boreholes, piezometers, down-hole tests, multichannel analysis of surface waves tests, seismic tomographies and inclinometer measurements were carried out. Furthermore, 1-D and 2-D local seismic response analyses were carried out by using different synthetic seismograms related to the earthquake of Messina and Reggio Calabria on 28 December 1908. The results of the numerical analyses are presented in terms of response seismograms and response spectra at the surface. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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17 pages, 4371 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Numerical Modeling of Nonlinear Response of Seafloor Porous Saturated Soil Deposits to SH-Wave Propagation

by Artem A. Krylov, Dmitry A. Alekseev, Sergey A. Kovachev, Elena A. Radiuk and Mikhail A. Novikov

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(4), 1854; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11041854 - 19 Feb 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2322

Abstract

Numerical modeling of seismic response of soil deposits is usually conducted as part of seismic hazard assessment, preceding facility construction in any tectonically active regions, including offshore sites. A significant feature of subsea soils is their porous and water-saturated structure. Thus, the purpose of the present study is to introduce a procedure for modeling nonlinear behavior of porous, moist soils during SH-wave propagation, to verify it and compare response for synthetic soil profiles with porous medium parameters specific for low moisture onshore and high moisture offshore sites with cohesive and non-cohesive soils. The well-known and approved NERA code was used as a basis and improved to incorporate the Biot and Gassman equations for elastic waves propagation in a fluid-saturated porous solid. The applicability of the presented approach was substantiated for integration into other well-known algorithms. Obtained results showed good agreement between the simulated by different methods and observed spectra. The modeling also showed that the response of cohesive and non-cohesive soils with moisture specific both for onshore and offshore sites is explained by effects of resonances and effect of seismic amplitude saturation, which, in turn, depend on the corresponding value of the layer thickness and S-wave impedance for porous saturated soil layer. The proposed scheme could have significant practical usage for studying the effect of porous medium parameters on the seismic response of the moist soil deposits. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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19 pages, 4645 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Determination of Initial-Shear-Stress Impact on Ramsar-Sand Liquefaction Susceptibility through Monotonic Triaxial Testing

by Mehrdad Nategh, Abdullah Ekinci, Anoosheh Iravanian and Siavash Salamatpoor

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(21), 7772; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10217772 - 3 Nov 2020

Viewed by 2597

Abstract

Liquefaction risk assessment is critical for the safety and economics of structures. As the soil strata of Ramsar area in north Iran is mostly composed of poorly graded clean sand and the ground water table is found at shallow depths, it is highly susceptible to liquefaction. In this study, a series of isotropic and anisotropic consolidated undrained triaxial tests were performed on reconstituted specimens of Ramsar sand to identify the liquefaction potential of the area. The specimens are consolidated isotropically to simulate the level ground condition, and anisotropically to simulate the soil condition on a slope and/or under a structure. The various states of soil behavior are studied by preparing specimens at different initial relative densities and applying different levels of effective stress. The critical state soil mechanics approach for identifying the liquefaction susceptibility is adopted and the observed phenomena are further explained in relation to the micro-mechanical behavior. As only four among the 27 conducted tests did not exhibit liquefactive behavior, Ramsar sand can be qualified as strongly susceptible to liquefaction. Furthermore, it is observed that the pore pressure ratio is a good indication of the liquefaction susceptibility. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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29 pages, 5894 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Damages to the Architectural Heritage of Naples as a Result of the Strongest Earthquakes of the Southern Apennines

by Germana Gaudiosi, Giuliana Alessio, Rosa Nappi, Valentina Noviello, Efisio Spiga and Sabina Porfido

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(19), 6880; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10196880 - 1 Oct 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4394

Abstract

The city of Naples (Campanian region, Southern Italy) has been hit by the strongest earthquakes located inside the seismogenic areas of the Southern Apennines, as well as by the volcano-tectonic earthquakes of the surrounding areas of the Campi Flegrei, Ischia and Vesuvius volcanic districts. An analysis of the available seismic catalogues shows that in the last millennium, more than 100 earthquakes have struck Naples with intensities rating I to III on the Mercalli–Cancani–Sieberg (MCS) scale over the felt level. Ten of these events have exceeded the damage level, with a few of these possessing an intensity greater than VII MCS. The catastrophic earthquakes of 1456 (I₀ = XI MCS), 1688 (I₀ = XI MCS) and 1805 (I₀ = X MCS) occurred in the Campania–Molise Apennines chain, produced devastating effects on the urban heritage of the city of Naples, reaching levels of damage equal to VIII MCS. In the 20th century, the city of Naples was hit by three strong earthquakes in 1930 (I₀ = X MCS), 1962 (I₀ = IX MCS) and 1980 (I₀ = X MCS), all with epicenters in the Campania and Basilicata regions. The last one is still deeply engraved in the collective memory, having led to the deaths of nearly 3000 individuals and resulted in the near-total destruction of some Apennine villages. Moreover, the city of Naples has also been hit by ancient historical earthquakes that originated in the Campanian volcanic districts of Campi Flegrei, Vesuvio and Ischia, with intensities up to VII–VIII MCS (highest in the Vesuvian area). Based on the intensity and frequency of its past earthquakes, the city of Naples is currently classified in the second seismic category, meaning that it is characterized by “seismicity of medium energy”. In this paper, we determine the level of damage suffered by Naples and its monuments as a result of the strongest earthquakes that have hit the city throughout history, highlighting its repetitiveness in some areas. To this aim, we reconstructed the seismic history of some of the most representative urban monuments, using documentary and historical sources data related to the effects of strong earthquakes of the Southern Apennines on the city of Naples. The ultimate purpose of this study is to perform a seismic macro-zoning of the ancient center of city and reduce seismic risk. Our contribution represents an original elaboration on the existing literature by creating a damage-density map of the strongest earthquakes and highlighting, for the first time, the areas of the city of Naples that are most vulnerable to strong earthquakes in the future. These data could be of fundamental importance to the construction of detailed maps of seismic microzones. Our study contributes to the mitigation of seismic risk in the city of Naples, and provides useful advice that can be used to protect the historical heritage of Naples, whose historical center is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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15 pages, 3035 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Analysis of Collapse Mechanism and Treatment Evaluation of a Deeply Buried Hard Rock Tunnel

by Shifan Qiao, Ziyong Cai, Junkun Tan, Ping Xu and Yonggang Zhang

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(12), 4294; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10124294 - 23 Jun 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2916

Abstract

Collapse is one of the most dangerous geological disasters in tunnel construction, and it is an urgent engineering problem which needs to be solved. Taking the collapse of the top of an actual tunnel face as an example, through field investigation and theoretical calculation methods, the mechanism of tunnel collapse was studied, and the treatment and evaluation of the collapse area were proposed based on field monitoring data. The results show that the extrusion and bulging deformation on the palm surface and the tensile fracture in the top inclined stratum led to the shear slip of the block along the structural surface and the local collapse of the surrounding rock. Based on the block theory, the potential unstable block at the top of the tunnel was successfully identified, and the treatment method of ‘protecting before filling and then digging’ was proposed. The comprehensive treatment measures of advance bolts, steel arch support, collapse backfill, and step excavation were adopted, with on-site monitoring followed up step by step. Based on the analysis of surrounding rock deformation and stress characteristics, in this paper we demonstrate that the treatment effects of the collapse area are good, and ensure the safety and smooth progress of construction. The proposed treatment method achieved the expected goal and was shown to be able to provide successful treatment for similar collapse cases of tunnel engineering. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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17 pages, 2909 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Influence of the Expansive Grout on Theoretical Bandwidth for the Measurement of Strain Waves by Borehole Tensor Strainmeters

by Kanghua Zhang, Jiayong Tian and Zhifei Hu

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(9), 3199; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10093199 - 4 May 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2024

Abstract

The scattering model of incident seismic waves by an empty borehole has been presented to investigate the theoretical frequency response and the corresponding bandwidth of borehole tensor strainmeters. Inner-diameter changes of the stainless steel instrument casing are measured by horizontal extensometers (gauges), after the borehole tensor strainmeter is installed at a certain depth of the borehole and boned by expansive grout with the surrounding rock. There is, however, no answer for the difference between this case and the empty case. In this paper, the scattering model of incident elastic seismic waves by a two-ring borehole is introduced to investigate the influence of the expansive grout on theoretical bandwidth for the measurement of strain waves by borehole tensor strainmeters. The calculation of wave fields in the surrounding rock and the two rings by wave function expansion gives the inner-diameter changes of the stainless steel instrument casing. Several cases show that the mechanical parameters of the expansive grout have great influence on the frequency responses of borehole tensor strainmeters for different gauge combinations, but little influence on the bandwidth, which means that the high-frequency bandwidth promises the quantitative measurability of strain waves in the acoustical frequency range for borehole tensor strainmeters. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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12 pages, 3947 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Parameter Evaluation of Exponential-Form Critical State Line of a State-Dependent Sand Constitutive Model

by Zhehao Zhu and Wei Cheng

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(1), 328; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10010328 - 1 Jan 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2960

Abstract

In sand constitutive models, it is of cardinal importance to consider a state parameter to distinguish the real dilatancy for cohesionless soils (sand), which is different from cohesive soils (clay). Thus, one of the key issues in simulating the sand behaviour is the better representation and parameter calibration of critical state line (CSL) for estimating contraction in loose state and dilatancy in dense state, respectively. For this purpose, a new exponential form for CSL with two model constants a and

b

has been presented in the literature. This paper provides a valuable insight into the two model constants, controlling the shape of the critical state line by simulating a uniform quartz reference sand (Hostun RF) in loose and dense states under undrained triaxial conditions. It can be concluded that the liquefaction behaviour in loose state is fundamentally affected by even a minor variation in model constant

a

, but insensitive to model constant

b

. Moreover, the linear fitting calibration of CSL recommended in the literature is complicated in consideration of the non-unified critical state line. Thus, the maximum void ratio in the natural state could be considered as a comparison basis on which to evaluate the liquefaction potential as an alternative. The numerical results showed good agreement with real experimental data. However, in dense state, the dilatant behaviour of sand was found to be mainly controlled by model parameter

b

. In addition, the influence of a non-unified critical state under various confining pressures on the determination of

b

should not be neglected. With the correction of

b

, the numerical results were found to be consistent with the experimental data concerning Hostun RF sand. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seismic Geotechnical Hazards Studies)

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