Journal of The School of Marine Science and Technology,Vol.2 No.3
An Experimental Study on Ground Motions and Permanent Deformation
nearby Earthquake Faults
Yoshimi OHTA and Omer AYDAN
Abstract
It is well known that earthquake faulting induces ground vibrations and permanent ground deformations,which
damage structures and cause the loss of lives and properties. The studies on the characteristics of vibrations and
permanent ground deformations during faulting process are very few. However, the ground vibrations induced by
faulting have important directivity effect. There are some laboratory experiments on how crack propagates and
appear on the ground surface in soil deposits overlaying a solid basement undergoing faulting motions under constant
velocity conditions. The authors developed an experimental equipment and performed acceleration measurements
during a dislocation action under gravitational environment. The relative displacement of the moving side in the
faulting experiments was varied between 25 and 100mm. The accelerations were measured on the surface of
quartzite sandy soil deposit of the moving and stationary sides in the faulting experiments. In this article, the
acceleration responses of hanging-wall and footwall in relation to faulting motion are described and discussed.The
experimental results clearly indicated that the accelerations on the mobile side of the fault several times larger than
those on the stationary side. This experimental result is consistent with acceleration measurement in earthquakes
such as 1999Chi-chi, 2003Miyagi-Hokubu and 2004Niigata-ken Chuetsu earthquakes.