Project Team:
Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering; University at Buffalo
Jianwei Song
Senior Research Scientist;
Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering;
University at Buffalo
Yihui Zhou
Research Scientist;
Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering;
University at Buffalo
International Research Partners
Kunitomo Sugiura, Kyoto University
Yasuo Kitane, Nagoya University
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Investigation of Cascading Effects of the 2011 Japan Earthquake to Structural Damage of Bridges
This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) award provides funding to carry out an exploratory study focused on modeling the structural damage to selected bridges subjected to long duration, high intensity earthquakes (including both the mainshock alone and the mainshock plus aftershocks), and a strong earthquake followed by tsunami wave force using actual input data from the March 11, 2011 Japan earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku. The project team will work with research partners in Japan who are collecting ground motion and tsunami wave force records as well as other useful perishable information; and will identify instrumented and damaged bridges that are suitable for preliminary investigations on the correlation between structural damage and long duration earthquake load effects as well those due to cascading hazard effects. Based on the available information, special emphasis for field data collection in this exploratory study will include some or all of the following:
- Structures designed according to comparably strict seismic design codes of Japan, but damaged in the mainshock earthquake most likely due to the characteristic of long duration
- Bridges that survived the mainshock earthquake with minor damage, but were more severely damaged or even collapsed in sequential aftershock earthquakes (including earthquake and/or tsunami introduced soil liquefaction effects)
- Bridges near the coast in the hazard region that were either damaged or collapsed due to the combined actions of the mainshock earthquake, and/or the tsunami water wave forces associated with the impact forces from floating debris objects, cars and ships to impact the structures
- Bridge failure as a result of degradation or loss of function of structural protection systems implemented on the bridge
The results of this exploratory research will be shared with NSF to consider future research opportunities related to multiple extreme hazard (including cascading events) mitigation of civil infrastructure systems. The study will also contribute to continued US-Japan cooperative earthquake engineering research activities and expand their scope to include multiple extreme event engineering. Additionally, this study will provide an opportunity to train post-doctoral and graduate students to understand the complex nature and challenges associated with developing multi-hazard resilient structures.
