Seismic Analysis and Design of Blockwork-Wharf Structures

Abstract eng:
During the past decades, a number of ports worldwide have suffered extensive earthquake-related damages. As seaports play a key role in the economy of many countries, target performances of wharf structures should be clearly stated and reliably pursued by designers. The present work focuses on seismic vulnerability of wharves in the Italian scenario, where most of the seaports are constituted by old infrastructures. According to a recently carried out census, most of the existing wharves in Italy are gravity-type, made of superimposed, dry-connected blocks, particularly in older facilities. Although such wharf-typology is widely spread worldwide, it has not attracted much research interest. Blockwork wharves are commonly designed using simplified, pseudo-static, force-based approaches. When the need of calculating displacements is recognized, the Newmark’s method is considered as the standard procedure. In the present study, the validity of such approaches has been investigated by comparison with extensive dynamic time-history analyses. Permanent displacements of the wall blocks have been calculated and compared with available performance criteria. Application to a real structure in the seaport of Ancona (Italy) has been carried out, as a methodological example. Furthermore, a parametric study has been conducted with the aim of investigating the role played by key design parameters.

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