Practical seismic fragility estimation of Japanese railway embankments using three seismic intensity measures

This study proposes a practical fragility estimation equation for Japanese standard models of railway embankments using the peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, and Arias intensity. The analytical models were implemented as unreinforced and geosynthetic-reinforced embankment models. A sen...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Masahiro Shinoda, Susumu Nakajima, Kenji Watanabe, Susumu Nakamura, Ikumasa Yoshida, Yoshihisa Miyata
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2022-08-01
Series:Soils and Foundations
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038080622000683
Description
Summary:This study proposes a practical fragility estimation equation for Japanese standard models of railway embankments using the peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, and Arias intensity. The analytical models were implemented as unreinforced and geosynthetic-reinforced embankment models. A sensitivity analysis of the seismic fragility estimation of the embankment models was conducted on various embankment heights, average values of friction angles in the backfill soil, and tensile strengths of the primary reinforcement. Consequently, a unique formula for the fragility function in the presence of different seismic intensities was successfully presented. The parameters of the fragility function were successfully estimated using commonly used design parameters, such as the embankment height, average value of the friction angle of the backfill soil, and average value of the tensile strength. Additionally, another sensitivity analysis using different seismic databases was conducted to explore the effect of the seismic database on the fragility curve estimation of railway embankments. As a result, using different seismic databases, different fragility curves were obtained. These results highlight the importance of checking the sensitivity of the seismic database when developing the fragility curve.
ISSN:2524-1788