Mitigating the effects of fault rupture

Abstract eng:
Permanent soil deformations may develop as a consequence of an abrupt fault rupture during a seismic event. Experience from recent earthquakes has shown that the effects of these deformations may be devastating for engineering structures. Hence, it is evident that a better understanding of the mechanism of fault rupture propagation is essential aiming at providing either set-back limits and/or mitigation measures for the engineering structures and infrastructures. During the past decade intense research has been focused on the fault rupture propagation through soft soil deposits. It has been shown that the mechanism of fault rupture propagation is affected by the fault type, the magnitude of fault displacement, the fault dip angle and the mechanical properties of the soil material overlying the fault tip. Hence, the determination of set-back limits may not be straightforward, and moreover their application to several types of engineering systems may not be feasible due to other socio-economical or even environmental reasons. Under the aforementioned perspective, the current study examines the application of mitigation measures in order to prevent the development of excessive ground deformation. For this purpose, one of the main functions of geosynthetics, i.e. reinforcement, is considered and reinforced soil configurations are analyzed. Parametric finite element analyses are performed and the effect of the most important parameters: fault displacement, mechanical properties of soil and reinforcement and interface properties is addressed. Moreover, alternative reinforcement scenarios are analyzed and their relevant efficiency on the reduction of the permanent ground deformation is illustrated. Results indicate that reinforced soil can be efficiently used as mitigation measures against fault rupture.

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