Ground motion duration effect on responses of hydraulic shallow-buried tunnel under SV-waves excitations

Although intensive research of the influence of ground motion duration on structural cumulative damage has been carried out, the influence of dynamic responses in underground tunnels remains a heated debate. This study attempts to highlight the importance of the ground motion duration effect on hydraulic tunnels subjected to deep-focus earthquakes. In the study, a set of 18 recorded accelerograms with a wide-range of durations were employed. A spectrally equivalent method serves to distinguish the effect of duration from other ground motion features, and then the seismic input model was simulated using SV-wave excitation based on a viscous-spring boundary, which was verified by the time-domain waves analysis method. The nonlinear analysis results demonstrate that the risk of collapse of the hydraulic tunnel is higher under long-duration ground motion than that of short-duration ground motion of the same seismic intensity. In a low intensity earthquake, the ground motion duration has little effect on the damage energy consumption of a hydraulic tunnel lining, but in a high intensity earthquake, dissipation of the damage energy and damage index of concrete shows a nonlinear growth trend accompanied by the increase of ground motion duration, which has a great influence on the deformation and stress of hydraulic tunnels, and correlation analysis shows that the correlation coefficient is greater than 0.8. Therefore, the duration of ground motion should be taken into consideration except for its intensity and frequency content in the design of hydraulic tunnel, and evaluation of seismic risk.

The analysis of the optimal scalar and vector intensity measurements for seismic performance assessment of deep-buried hydraulic arched tunnels

The selection of optimal intensity measures(IMs)has been recommended for generating the seismic demand models with different probabilities by researchers since the seismic IMs are closely associated with earthquake risks and structural safety.However,the seismic design code(mainly for aboveground structures)and dynamic analysis of underground structures conventionally employ the peak ground acceleration(PGA)as an optimal IM.In this paper,the research is to identify the optimal scalar and vector IMs in the fragility investigation of deep-buried hydraulic arched tunnels using the finite element method.A refinement process was performed to determine the optimal scalar IMs by comprehensively comparing their correlation,efficiency,practicality,proficiency,and sufficiency among the examined IMs.Furtherly,the optimum vector IMs were also developed,followed by the three different scalar IMs.Eventually,the dif-ferences between the fragility curves of the tunnel produced using the optimal scalar and vector IM were compared.The generated vector fragility surface can be used to estimate the seismic fragility of identical hydraulic tunnels in an approximative manner.