Seismic Reduction and Isolation Design Strategies for Bridges in High-Intensity Earthquake Areas

High-intensity earthquakes can cause severe damage to bridges,buildings,and ground surfaces,as well as disrupt human activities.Such earthquakes can create long-distance,high-intensity surface movements that negatively impact bridge structures.This article delves into the seismic reduction and isolation design strategies for bridges in high-intensity earthquake areas.It analyzes various seismic reduction and isolation technologies and provides case studies to help relevant units understand the design strategies of these technologies.The results of this article can be used as a guideline to effectively enhance the seismic performance of bridges in high-intensity earthquake areas.

Paterns and regularity of ring distribution of seismic activity before great earthquakes in China

A systematic study on ″ring phenomena″ frequently occurring before great earthquakes has made in this paper, which has analyzed the features of ring distributions before 16 great earthquakes and part of large earthquakes in China and its boundary areas, and discussed their features of generality, regularity and predictive meaning. The results have showed that moderate earthquakes or larger earthquakes distribute around the epicenter like a ring from decades to hundred years before the great earthquakes of magnitude more than 7, which is a general phenomenon of great earthquakes without an exception. The active ring generally occurs in the areas from hundreds to thousands of kilometers from the epicenter(according to the magnitude). The seismicity in the ring has three basic stages with different features. in the first stage, seismicity remains at low level and the earthquakes distribute scatteredly, while the source area of the future great earthquake remains quiet; in the second stage, the seismicity strengthens, whose frequency, intensity, concentrated degree, released rate of strain and ratio of distributed area etc. increase, while the quiet area decreases or disappears; in the third stage, the seismicity is weaker than in the former stage, and the quiet area appears again. The source area surrounded by the active ring might have three periods of activity(called as early term, medium term and late term foreshocks activity). The length of the quiet area undergoes the process from large to small, then to large. Therefore, we can estimate the occurring place, magnitude and seismogenic stage of great earthquake according to the area,length and the seismicity in the active ring, which is valuable to make a long term prediction of great earthquakes. At last, we had a preliminary discussion on the mechanism of active ring formation.

Three-dimensional crustal deformation before and after the Wenchuan earthquake in Guanzhong and adjacent regions

The recent plethora of GPS observations compensates for the 20-year-old lack in vertical displacement data for the Guanzhong region. The 2001—2007 three-dimensional（3D） crustal deformation data suggest regional movement with a horizontal velocity of 3—7 mm/a,predominantly from SSE in the west to SE in the east, and vertical inherited movement with velocity of -7 mm/a to 4 mm/a. After the Wenchuan earthquake, the GPS data suggest that the effect of the earthquake on the regional deformation is greater in the west than the east.The horizontal displacement increased during 2007—2008; however, the reverse was observed in 2008—2009. The vertical displacement in the western part of the region increased in 2008 and has been gradually returning to normal since 2009; however, in the eastern part,the effect of the earthquake remains.

Basement interface structural characteristics beneath Jiashi strong earthquake swarm area in Xinjiang, China

The seismic data obtained from high resolution seismic refraction profile in Jiashi strong earthquake swarm area in Xinjiang, China were further processed with ray hit analysis method and more complete basement interface structural characteristics beneath Jiashi strong earthquake swarm area were determined. The results show that there are two clear basement interfaces at the upper crust in Jiashi strong earthquake swarm area. The first one with buried depth ranging from 2.6 km to 3.3 km presents integral and continuous structure, and it appears an inclined plane interface and smoothly rises up toward Tianshan Mountain. The second basement interface with buried depth from 8.5 km to 11.8 km, is the antiquated crystalline basement of Tarim basin. Near the post number of 37 km, the buried depth of the crystalline basement changed abruptly by 2.5 km, which maybe result from an ultra crystalline basement fault. If taking this fault as a boundary, the crystalline basement could be divided into two parts, i.e. the southwestern segment with buried depth about 11.5 km, and the northeastern segment with buried depth approxi-mately from 8.5 km to 9.0 km. That is to say, in each segment, the buried depth changes not too much. The northeast segment rises up as a whole and upheaves slightly from southwest to northeast, which reflects the upper crustal deformation characteristics under the special tectonic background at the northwestern edge of Tarim basin.

Moment tensor inversion and source rupture process of the September 27, 2003 M_S=7.9 earthquake occurred in the border area of China, Russia and Mongolia

plane with the strike of 127°, the dip of 79° and the rake of 171°. The rupture process inversion result of MS=7.9 earthquake shows that the total rupture duration is about 37 s, the scalar moment tensor is M0=0.97 × 1020 N·m. Rupture mainly occurred on the shallow area with 110 km long and 30 km wide, the location in which the rupture initiated is not where the main rupture took place, and the area with slip greater than 0.5 m basically lies within 35 km deep middle-crust under the earth surface. The maximum static slip is 3.6 m. There are two distinct areas with slip larger than 2.0 m. We noticed that when the rupture propagated towards northwest and closed to the area around the MS=7.3 hypocenter, the slip decreased rapidly, which may indicate that the rupture process was stopped by barriers. The consistence of spatial distribution of slip on the fault plane with the distribution of aftershocks also supports that the rupture is a heterogeneous process owing to the presence of barriers.

3-D structural reconstruction of Moho in the Tangshan earthquake area by using inversion of curved interface

A method for inverting 3 D curved interface and layer velocity by using travel time of reflected waves is studied. Each interface is described with sectional, incomplete cubic polynomial. A fast 3 D ray tracing method is used in forward problem, and a least squares method with variable damping is adopted in the inverse problem. Result from numerical modelling shows that the solution can converge fast on the true model. Observational data from the Tangshan earthquake area are processed, 3 D Moho discontinuity in the area is rebuilt, and finally, the relationship between the regional structure and seismicity is revealed.

The relationship between the earthquakes of Ningbo area and the Neotectonic movement

On the basis of analysis of historic earthquakes, seismicity, Neotectonics and fault activity in Ningbo area, we estimate its seismotectonic environment and evaluate its seismic risk. This study gives an example of engineering seismology in weak seismicity areas of the eastern part of China.

An analysis of anomalous weather and climate around the M_S=6.2 earthquake of Zhangbei region

Through analysis we found that some mesoscale anomalous regions (10 1～10 2 km) of meteorological parameters such as the special drought areas, unusual warm areas, the largest snowfall center, low pressure area together with the epicenter area of M S=6.2 Zhangbei earthquake on January 10, 1998 are located at the same area, i.e. there appears the ″Five areas corresponding″ phenomenon. Meanwhile, three times of low pressure evolution are generated and develop in the earthquake area in five days after the occurrence of the earthquake. The abnormal variation of the lower limit of frozen soil layer shows indirectly that unusual warm in earthquake areas are related to the upward thermal conduction from the deeper layer of earth surface.

Disastrous Rains Downpours and flooding cause more problems for the area hie hard by last year’s earthquake

At least six people were killed on July 25 when a rockslide smashed into a bridge in Wenchuan County,ithe epicenter of last