Nonlinear Soil Response— 1994 Northridge, California, Earthquake
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical Engineering
Volume 122, Issue 9
Abstract
Peak ground accelerations recorded during the Northridge, California, earthquake of January 17, 1994 are described in relation to the observed, nonlinear soil response. Four attenuation relationships were developed specifically for this earthquake, for horizontal and vertical motions, and for “soft” and “hard” soil conditions. The results show that, within 20 km from the epicenter, seven (possibly 10) stations with “soft” soil conditions recorded smaller horizontal peak accelerations than expected. No such trend could be detected for the vertical motions. At the “soft” sites, where a reduction of peak horizontal acceleration was observed, the peak strains were larger than 10 −3 . The widespread nonlinear response of soil in the same general area (sliding, liquefaction, cracked pipes, and roads) suggests that the observed reduction of peak accelerations is most probably due to nonlinear soil response.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
Achenbach, J. D. (1973). Wave propagation in elastic solids . American Elsevier Publishing Co., Inc., New York, N.Y.
2.
Bardet, J. P., and Davis, C.(1995). “Engineering observations of ground motion at the Van Norman complex after the Northridge earthquake.”Bull. Seismological Soc. Am., 86(10), 333–349.
3.
Chin, B. H., and Aki, K.(1991). “Simultaneous study of the source, path and site effects on strong ground motions during the Loma Prieta earthquake: a preliminary result on pervasive non-linear site effects.”Bull. Seismological Soc. of Am., 81, 1859–1884.
4.
Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI). (1994). Northridge earthquake, January 17, 1994. Preliminary Reconnaissance Rep., Oakland, Calif.
5.
Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI). (1995). Northridge earthquake of January 17, 1994. Reconnaissance Rep., Earthquake Spectra, Supplement C to Vol. 11, Vol. 1.
6.
Holloway, L. J.(1958). “Smoothing and filtering of time series and space fields.”Advances in Geophysics, 4, 351–389.
7.
Idriss, I. M. (1985). “Evaluating seismic risk in engineering practice.”Proc., 11th Conf. on Soil Mech. and Found. Engrg., San Francisco, Calif., 255–320.
8.
Kojić, S., and Trifunac, M. D. (1991a). Earthquake stresses in arch dams: I—Theory and anti-plane excitation. J. Engrg. Mech., ASCE, 117(3), 532–552.
9.
Kojić, S., and Trifunac, M. D. (1991b). Earthquake stresses in arch dams: II—Excitation by SV, P and Rayleigh waves. J. Engrg. Mech., ASCE, 117(3), 5553–5574.
10.
Lee, V. W., Trifunac, M. D., and Feng, C. C.(1982). “Effects of foundation size on Fourier spectrum amplitudes of earthquake accelerations recorded in buildings.”Soil Dyn. and Earthquake Engrg., 1(2), 52–58.
11.
Lee, V. W., and Trifunac, M. D. (1990). “Automatic digitization and processing of accelerograms.”PC. Dept. of Civ. Engrg. Rep. No. CE 90-03, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif.
12.
Lee, V. W., Trifunac, M. D., Todorovska, M. I., and Novikova, E. I. (1995). “Empirical equations describing attenuation of the peaks of strong ground motion in terms of magnitude, distance, path effects, and site conditions.”Dept. of Civ. Engrg. Rep. No. CE 95-02, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif.
13.
Los Angeles Department of Building Safety. (1994). “Earthquake damage sites, January 17, 1994, in the City of Los Angeles.”Map Prepared by Land Devel. and Mapping Div., Los Angeles, Calif.
14.
Moslem, K., and Trifunac, M. D.(1987). “Spectral amplitudes of strong earthquake accelerations recorded in buildings.”Soil Dyn. and Earthquake Engrg, 6(2), 100–107.
15.
Novikova, E. I., and Trifunac, M. D. (1994). “State of the art review on strong motion duration.”Proc., 10th Eur. Conf. on Earthquake Engrg., Vienna, Austria, 131–140.
16.
Papaulis, A. (1962). The Fourier integral and its applications . McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, N.Y.
17.
Scientists of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). (1994). “The magnitude 6.7 Northridge, California, earthquake of January 17, 1994.” 266, 389–397.
18.
Stewart, J. P., Bray, J. D., Seed, R. B., and Sitar, N., eds. (1994). “Preliminary report on principal geotechnical aspects of the January 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake.”Rep. No. UCB/EERC-94/08, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, Univ. of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, Calif.
19.
Trifunac, M. D.(1971). “Zero baseline correction of strong motion accelerograms.”Bull. Seismological Soc. of Am., 61, 1201–1211.
20.
Trifunac, M. D.(1972a). “A note on correction of strong motion accelerograms for instrument response.”Bull. Seismological Soc. of Am., 62, 401–409.
21.
Trifunac, M. D.(1972b). “Interaction of a shear wall with the soil for incident plane SH waves.”Bull. Seismological Soc. Am., 62, 63–83.
22.
Trifunac, M. D.(1976a). “Preliminary empirical model for scaling Fourier amplitude spectra of strong ground acceleration in terms of earthquake magnitude, source to station distance and recording site conditions.”Bull. Seismological Soc. of Am., 66, 1343–1373.
23.
Trifunac, M. D.(1976b). “Preliminary analysis of the peaks of strong earthquake ground motion—dependence of peaks and earthquake magnitude, epicentral distance and the recording site conditions.”Bull. Seismological Soc. of Am., 66, 189–219.
24.
Trifunac, M. D.(1982). “A note on rotational components of earthquake motions for incident body waves.”Soil Dyn. and Earthquake Engrg., 1(1), 11–19.
25.
Trifunac, M. D.(1990). “How to model amplification of strong earthquake motions by local soil and geologic site conditions.”Earthquake Engrg. and Struct. Dyn., 19(6), 833–846.
26.
Trifunac, M. D., and Lee, V. W.(1990). “Frequency dependent attenuation of strong earthquake ground motion.”Soil Dyn. and Earthquake Engrg., 9(1), 3–15.
27.
Trifunac, M. D. (1991). “M LSM.”Soil Dyn. and Earthquake Engrg., 10(1), 17–25.
28.
Trifunac, M. D.(1993). “Long period Fourier amplitude spectra of strong motion accelerations.”Soil Dyn. and Earthquake Engrg., 12(6), 363–382.
29.
Trifunac, M. D., Todorovska, M. I., and Ivanovic, S. S.(1994). “A note on distribution of uncorrected peak ground accelerations during the Northridge, California Earthquake of 17 January 1994.”Soil Dyn. and Earthquake Engrg., 13(3), 187–196.
30.
Trifunac, M. D.(1994a). “Fourier amplitude spectra of strong motion acceleration: extension to high and low frequencies.”Earthquake Engrg. and Struct. Dyn., 23(4), 389–411.
31.
Trifunac, M. D.(1994b). “Q and high frequency strong motion spectra.”Soil Dyn. and Earthquake Engrg., 13(3), 149–161.
32.
Trifunac, M. D. (1994c). “Earthquake source variables for scaling spectral and temporal characteristics of strong ground motion.”Proc., 10th Eur. Conf. on Earthquake Engrg., Vienna, Austria, 2585–2590.
33.
Trifunac, M. D. (1994d). “Response spectra of strong motion acceleration: extension to high and low frequencies.”Proc., 10th Eur. Conf. on Earthquake Engrg., Vienna, Austria, 203–208.
34.
Trifunac, M. D.(1995a). “Empirical criteria for liquefaction in sands via standard penetration tests and seismic wave energy.”Soil Dyn. and Earthquake Engrg., 14(4), 419–426.
35.
Trifunac, M. D.(1995b). “Pseudo relative velocity spectra of earthquake ground motion at high frequencies.”Earthquake Engrg. and Struct. Dyn., 24(8), 1113–1130.
36.
Trifunac, M. D. (1995c). “Scaling earthquake motion in geotechnical design.”3rd Int. Conf. on Recent Adv. in Geotechnol., Earthquake Engrg. and Soil Dyn., St. Louis, Mo., 607–612.
37.
Wald, D. J., and Heaton, T. H. (1994). “A dislocation model for the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake determined from strong ground motions.”U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Rep. 94-278.
38.
Yu, G., Anderson, J. G., and Siddharthan, R.(1993). “On the characteristics of non-linear soil response.”Bull. Seismological Soc. Am., 83(1), 218–244.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical Engineering
Volume 122 • Issue 9 • September 1996
Pages: 725 - 735
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Sep 1, 1996
Published in print: Sep 1996
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.