Project Team:
Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering;
University at Buffalo
Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering; University at Buffalo
Dhiman Basu
Post Doctoral Scholar; Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering;
University at Buffalo
Sponsor:
Project Duration:
2010-2012
Rotational Components of Ground Motions
This project focused on characterizing the rotational components of ground motion for use in earthquake engineering design. The study will shed new light on the impact of rotational components of ground motions on buildings, safety related nuclear structures, bridges and other infrastructure. Modern seismic instrumentation does not have the capability to record this type of ground motion, so analytical methods are needed.
The project team used ground motions recorded from the Large Scale Seismic Test array at Lotung, Taiwan, to develop procedures to obtain the rotational components of ground motion from translational data recorded by either a single station or multiple stations. The new procedures were applied to a simple structure and a four-story base-isolated and fixed-base building subjected to horizontal, torsional and rocking ground motion. The study revealed that the rotational components of ground motion significantly affected the response of these structures, and should be taken into account in seismic design codes. In addition, the team proposed design criteria for dense seismic arrays, such as the optimal length, number of recording stations and their spatial distribution so that higher quality recordings would be available following future earthquakes.
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Deriving rotational components of ground motion |
Physical interpretation of data from multiple stations |
Arrangement of stations in a dense seismic array |
Publications
Basu, D., Whittaker, A.S. and. Constantinou, M.C., “On estimating rotational components of earthquake ground motion using data from a single recording station,” Journal of Engineering Mechanics, doi:10.1061/(ASCE)EM.1943-7889.0000408, February 2012.
Basu, D., Whittaker, A.S. and Constantinou, M.C., Characterizing the Rotational Components of Earthquake Ground Motion, technical report MCEER-12-0005, MCEER, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, June 2012.
