• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.93-109
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• 2015

Based on the reconnaissance of buildings in Dujiangyan City during 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, China, structural damage characteristics and the spatial distribution of structural damage are investigated, and the possible reasons for the extraordinary features are discussed with consideration of the influence of urban historical evolution and spatial variation of earthquake motions. Firstly, the urban plan and typical characteristics of structural seismic damage are briefly presented and summarized. Spatial distribution of structural damage is then comparatively analyzed by classifying all surveyed buildings in accordance with different construction age, considering the influence of seismic design code on urban buildings. Finally, the influences of evolution of seismic design code, topographic condition, local site and distance from fault rupture on spatial distribution of structural damage are comprehensively discussed. It is concluded that spatial variation of earthquake motions, resulting from topography, local site effect and fault rupture, are very important factor leading to the extraordinary spatial distribution of building damage except the evolution of seismic design codes. It is necessary that the spatial distribution of earthquake motions should be considered in seismic design of structures located in complicated topography area and near active faults.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.6
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• pp.651-666
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• 2020

In this study, the spatial variation mechanisms of large far-field earthquakes at engineering scales are first investigated with data from the 2008 Ms 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake. And a novel 'coherency cut-off frequency' is proposed to distinguish the spatial variations in ground motions in the low-frequency and high-frequency ranges. Then, a practical piecewise coherency model is developed to estimate and characterize the spatial variation in earthquake ground motions, including the effects of source-to-site distances, site conditions and neighboring topography on these variations. Four particular earthquake records from dense seismograph arrays are used to investigate values of the coherency cut-off frequency for different source-to-site distances. On the basis of this analysis, the model is established to simulate the spatial variations, whose parameters are suitable for both near- and far-field earthquake conditions. Simulations are conducted to validate the proposed model and method. The results show that compared to the existing models, the proposed model provides an effective method for simulating the spatial correlations of ground motions at local sites with known source-to-site distances.

• 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.02b
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• pp.165.2-165.2
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• 2009

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.37-44
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• 2015

Many people criticized how the Chinese government responded to the Wenchuan Earthquake. They focused on how it failed to address the psychological needs of the survivors. The study presented here approached this issue from a human resources perspective. It was determined that the Chinese government approached the situation in a bureaucratic way that limited the government's capacity and barred non-profit organizations and community groups from participating. It was also found that survivors could not contact these organizations for psychological support. This study concludes that the situation called for a more flexible and improvised institution that would respond to the emerging needs of survivors.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.418-421
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• 2008

Wenchuan earthquake (Mw 7.9) occurred in Sichuan province, China, May 2008 had resulted in a huge fault displacement around the Lungmenshan fault. Preliminary results of the fault displacement observed by ALOS PALSAR interferometry are presented. The surface deformation by the Wenchuan earthquake was reported up to 10m consisting of thrust- and right-slip compnents. A significant reduction in ionospheric density was also reported. Twenty differential interferograms and twenty multiple aperture SAR interferometry (MAI) pairs were produced over four ALOS tracks. It was observed from differential interferograms that i) LOS deformation decreases steadily from northnorthwest of the Longmenshan fault to the fault, ii) the LOS deformation sharply increases at areas around the fault, and iii) the decrease of the LOS deformation is observed from the Longmenshan fault to the south-southeast of the fault. Horizontal movement of the reverse fault displacement can better be observed by MAI technique, and the MAI phases show that i) the south-southeast directional reverse fault displacement (negative along-track deformation for an ascending track) of the north-northwest block gradually increases to the Longmenshan fault, ii) the reverse fault movement of the south-southeast block is sharply reversed to the north-northwest of the fault, and iii) the northnorthwest movement gradually decreases to the south-southeast of fault. Although the Lonmenshan Fault line is a center of earthquake epicenter, the boundary of surface movement exists to the north-northeast of the fault. Since the ionosphere was not stable even forty days after the mainshock, MAI phases were seriously corrupted by ionospheric effect. It is necessary to acquire more data when the ionosphere recovered to a normal state.

• Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.249-267
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• 2014

Social media is being increasingly utilized in disaster relief work to identify safety issues, locate displaced-victims, and seek or provide support for those who need help. The presence of social media in disaster management has changed significantly in recent years, as it was not prevalent in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, but had become a powerful force in the 2013 Ya'an earthquake. This paper discusses the development of social media in disaster management via making a comparison between how it functioned in the two earthquakes. It examines the following aspects: who are the stakeholders that use social media in the earthquake management; how do they adopt this means in response to the earthquakes; and what are the outcomes of adopting social media with regards to public engagement and collaboration in an emergency event. As Sina Weibo acts as the equivalent of China's Twitter, the methodology relies on an analysis of posts in Weibo. The outcomes primarily show that: (1) authorities, celebrities and the public actively adopted social media for the purpose of information dissemination and resource mobilization; and (2) social media users are both content consumers and content generators in the times of earthquakes. The study concludes that social media as a backchannel communication tool is helpful for government institutions, corporations, and nonprofit organizations to build relationships with their stakeholders in the disaster management cycle. The result will interest academics and emergency management practitioners who are concerned with improving disaster communication.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.03a
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• pp.1225-1234
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• 2009

As the Wenchuan Earthquake was of high magnitude and shallow seismic focus, it caused great damage and serious geo-hazards. By the field investigation and remote-sensing interpretation after the earthquake and by using means of GIS, the distribution of geo-hazards triggered by the earthquake was analyzed and the conclusions are as follows: (1) the earthquake geo-hazards showed the feature of zonal distribution along the earthquake fault zone and linear distribution along the rivers; (2) the distribution of earthquake geo-hazards had a marked hanging wall effect, for the development density of geo-hazards in the hanging wall of earthquake fault was obviously higher than that in the foot wall and the width of strong development zone in the hanging wall was about 10 km; (3) the topographical slope was a main factor which controlled the development of earthquake geo-hazards and a vast majority of geo-hazards were distributed on the slopes of 20 to 50 degrees; (4) the earthquake geo-hazards had a corresponding relationship with the elevation and micro-landform, for most hazards happened in the river valleys and canyon sections below the elevation of 1500 to 2000 m, particularly in the upper segment of canyon sections (namely, the turning point from the dale to the canyon). Thin ridge, isolated or full-face space mountains were most sensitive to the seismic wave, and had a striking amplifying effect. In these areas, collapses and landslides were most likely to develop; (5) the study also showed that different lithologies determined the types of geo-hazards, and usually, landslides occurred in soft rocks, while collapses occurred in hard rocks.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.411-424
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• 2019

In this study, a numerical model of a shield tunnel with an assembled segmental lining was built. The seismic response of the segmental lining of the section of the shield tunnel in Line 1 of the Chengdu Metro is analyzed as it passes through the interface of sand-cobble and mudstone layers. To do so, the node-stress seismic-motion input method was used to input the seismic motion measured during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, and the joint openings and dislocations associated with the earthquake action were obtained. With reference to the Ethylene-Propylene-Diene Monomer (EPDM) sealing gaskets used in the shield tunnels in the Chengdu Metro, numerical simulation was applied to analyze the contact pressure along the seepage paths and the waterproof property under different joint openings and dislocations. A laboratory test on the elastic sealing gasket was also conducted to study its waterproof property. The test results accord well with the numerical results and the occurrence of water seepage in the section of the shield tunnel in Line 1 of the Chengdu Metro during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake was verified. These research results demonstrate the deformation of segmental joint under earthquake, also demonstrate the relationship between segmental joint deformation and waterproof property.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.39-53
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• 2012

Due to strong ground motion of earthquake, the material in the landslide can travel a significant distance from the source. A new landslide model called Multiplex Acceleration Model (MAM) has been proposed to interpret the mechanism of long run-out movement of this type of landslide, considering earthquake behaviors on slope and landslide materials. In previous study, this model was verified by a shaking table test. However, there is a scale limitation of shaking table test to investigate MAM in detail. Thus, numerical simulation was carried out in this study to validate MAM under full scale. A huge rock ejected and A truck threw upwards by seismic force during Wenchuan Earthquake (Ms. 8.0) was discussed based on the simulation results. The results indicate that collisions in P-phase of earthquake and trampoline effect are important behaviors to interpret the mechanism of long run-out and high velocity. The results show that MAM is acceptable and applicable.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.909-922
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• 2014

In this paper, we present an alternative seismic design strategy for cable stayed bridges with concrete pylons when subjected to strong ground motions. The comparison of conventional seismic design using supplemental dampers (strategy A) and the new strategy using nonlinear seismic design of pylon columns (strategy B) is exemplified by one typical medium span cable stayed bridge subjected to strong ground motions from 1999 Taiwan Chi-Chi earthquake and 2008 China Wenchuan earthquake. We first conducted the optimization of damper parameters according to strategy A in response to the distinct features that strong ground motions contain. And then we adopted strategy B to carry out seismic analysis by introducing the elastic-plastic elements that allowing plasticity development in the pylon columns. The numerical results show that via strategy A, the earthquake induced structural responses can be kept in the desired range provided with the proper damping parameters, however, the extra cost of unusual dampers will be inevitable. For strategy B, the pylon columns may not remain elastic and certain plasticity developed, but the seismic responses of the foundation will be greatly decreased, meanwhile, the displacement at the top of pylon seems to be not affected much by the yielding of pylon columns, which indicates the pylon nonlinear design can be an alternative design strategy when strong ground motions have to be considered for the bridge.