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

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