Recent experimental research has shown that ordinary unbounded steel reinforced elastomeric bearings (SREBs) can be considered as an attractive cost-effective option for the seismic isolation of highway bridges. To further investigate its benefits, the current study is focused on the seismic risk assessment of an optimally designed highway bridge isolated by SREB system. A typical three-span hi...

A new two-step approach is proposed to quantify the uncertainties of the seismicity rate ν(M) estimated by Gutenberg-Richter relations of seismic area source zones in logic tree-driven probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. The first step makes use of the possibility that the uncertainties of the Gutenberg-Richter parameters α and β (or a and b), expressed by their covariance matrix C(α, β) (or...

The February 21, 2008, Wells earthquake (MW=6.0) occurred in a region of northeastern Nevada where the seismicity has historically been low relative to western Nevada. In a region of area of approximately10 5 km 2 of northeastern Nevada, based rates of smaller earthquakes in the region prior to 2008, earthquakes of MW=6.0 or larger are expected with a rate of about 0.01 per year. The probabilit...

Like all theories in any branch of physics, theories of the seismic source should be testable (i.e., they should be formulated so that they can be objectively compared to observations and rejected if they disagree). Unfortunately, many widely held theories of the seismic source, such as the elastic rebound paradigm and characteristic earthquake model, and theories for applying them to make prob...

References l.html#ref-list-1 http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1845/1965.ful This article cites 25 articles, 5 of which can be accessed free Rapid response 1845/1965 http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/letters/submit/roypta;364/ Respond to this article Email alerting service here in the box at the top right-hand corner of the article or click Receive free email alerts when n...

Recurrence interval of large earthquake on an active fault zone is an important parameter in assessing seismic hazard. The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake (Mw 7.9) occurred on the central Longmen Shan fault zone and ruptured the Yingxiu-Beichuan fault (YBF) and the Guanxian-Jiangyou fault (GJF). However, there is a considerable discrepancy among recurrence intervals of large earthquake in preseismic a...

A gas distribution system comprises two main categories of components: (i) a number of point-like critical facilities (reduction stations and groups); and (ii) pipelines constituting the distribution network. The causes of earthquake damage to components of gas systems include permanent ground deformation (PGD) hazard produced by fault displacements, landslides, liquefaction of sandy soils, as ...

Seismic hazard analysis, in particular in regions of low to moderate seismicity, is known to be subject to large amounts of uncertainties. According to their nature and origin, these can be classifi ed as either aleatory (describing intrinsic variabilities of processes) or epistemic (related to the lack of knowledge). Truely aleatory uncertainties are irreducible and will always be an indispens...