Effects of Ground Failure on Bridges, Roads, and Railroads

Abstract

The long duration and strong velocity content of the motions produced by the 27 February 2010 Maule earthquake resulted in widespread liquefaction and lateral spreading in several urban and other regions of Chile. In particular, critical lifeline structures such as bridges, roadway embankments, and railroads were damaged by ground shaking and ground failure. This paper describes the effects that ground failure had on a number of bridges, roadway embankments, and railroads during this major earthquake.

Dynamic modeling of Mataquito Bridge affected by liquefaction - induced lateral spreading

“…post-seismic lateral displacement between 4 to 18 cm at the top of the south abutment piles. In Ledezma et al (2012), it was registered a lateral spreading from the edge of the south abutment wall to the first row of piers of about 54 cm, and the total lateral spreading from the edge of the abutment wall to the river's edge of about 180 cm. The results predict displacements about 70 cm from the wall to the first row of piles, and about 200 cm from the wall to the river shore.…”

“…The liquefaction triggered during this event resulted in significant damage to several structures. One of the most common observations was the impact of liquefied foundation soils on the deformation of approach fills and lateral spreading (Ledezma et al, 2012). In this paper we study the seismic behavior of the Mataquito Bridge located close to the Pacific Ocean, in the Maule region.…”

“…The north abutment was founded on loose sediments that liquefied and spread towards the river, causing moderate to significant longitudinal deformations. The south abutment was founded on sands over possibly shallow bedrock and the structural damage and deformations observed were considered negligible (Ledezma et al, 2012). Figure 1a shows the observed fill settlement at the north abutment, Figure 1b presents the liquefaction-induced lateral spreading effects in the surrounding area, Figure 1c shows soil vertical settlement at the interior piers and Figure 1d presents the failure of the handrails.…”

Analysis of the seismic bearing capacity of shallow foundations

“…In this way, for instance, during the 27 February 2010 Maule earthquake (M w =8.8) in Chile, a series of buildings and critical lifeline structures such as ports, bridges, industrial facilities, railroads and roadway embankments were strongly damaged due to this phenomenon Ledezma et al, 2012;Assimaki et al, 2012), which was the most commonly observed mode of failure. For this reason, the reliability indexes RI 1 and RI 2 obtained taking as a reference the theory developed by Budhu & Al-Karni (1993) are particularly noteworthy, since they are contradictory with respect to the behavior of foundations observed during major earthquakes.…”

Liquefaction-induced ground damages during the 2010 Chile earthquake

“…After the 2010 Chile Earthquake clear evidence of liquefactioninduced lateral spreading in the Northern abutment (access to Concepción) was observed [24]. However, the piers located into the river bed did not present any evidence of lateral displacements, but important settlements due to the occurrence of liquefaction were observed (photos of Fig.…”