Effects of Near-Fault Ground Motions on Civil Infrastructure

Dear Colleagues,

Near-fault earthquakes (NFEs) have various peculiar effects on seismic response structures and, at the present time, risks from such earthquakes are neither well understood nor characterized. Usually, the input motions from NFEs are represented by a few sinusoidal large waves in addition to significant vertical components. These features reduce the efficacy of conventional mitigation methods and the existing variety of seismic design provisions produce different optimal solutions in the dimensioning of structures. The level of uncertainty is especially high for seismically isolated structures—e.g., friction pendulum solutions.

Usually, the prominent features of NFEs are not explicitly considered in the seismic input definition for design. This lack of attention can be ascribed—at least partially—to the relative scarcity of NFE records, which inherently bear higher epistemic uncertainties. Conversely, while designing a structure against NFEs, one should still typically account for distant probable earthquakes, and the appropriate characterization and consideration of such inevitably combined risks must be carefully made, representing an important research topic.

Soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects are also typically prominent on structures subject to NFEs, especially given the heightened vertical seismic actions under NFEs.

In conclusion, this Special Issue aims to present a collection of papers covering:

• definition of near-fault seismic input;
• definition of nonsynchronous near field seismic input;
• methods of analysis of seismic responses under NFEs with special emphasis on pushover applications including incremental modal pushover analyses (IMPA) of conventional as well as isolated structures (buildings and bridges);
• structural responses to NFEs and comparisons among different design solutions;
• optimum seismic design under NFEs;
• SSI effects under NFEs;
• case studies of responses to NFEs through both parametric studies and analysis of recorded data from instrumented structures.

Prof. Camillo Nuti
Prof. Dr. Bruno Briseghella
Dr. Davide Lavorato
Prof. Dr. Ertugrul Taciroglu
Dr. Alessandro Vittorio Bergami
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.