Sequential Simulations of Steel Frame Buildings Under Multi-Phase Hazardous Loads During Earthquake and Tsunami

Abstract

Based on the experience of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the following tsunami, this study aims to develop effective analytical tools that can comprehensively be applied to buildings under multi-phase hazardous loads such as seismic motion, fluid force, and debris impact. Simulations by two kinds of analytical tools were conducted. First, a structural collapse analysis of a steel frame building under successive applications of varying loads was performed using the ASI (Adaptively Shifted Integration)-Gauss code, which simulates behaviors of structures by simple modeling. The steel frame building model was first excited under an acceleration record observed in Kesennuma-shi during the earthquake, and fluid forces due to a tsunami wave were applied. Then, the collapse behavior of the building was investigated by implementing a sophisticated contact algorithm in the numerical code to express a collision between debris and a building. It became evident that the damage to the building intensifies if a head-on collision occurs under a tsunami flow with a lower inundation height, and the damage to the building becomes larger if sideway collisions occur under a tsunami flow with a higher inundation height and higher velocity. The second simulation was conducted by using the stabilized finite element method based on the volume of fluid method, to estimate a drag coefficient of an actual tsunami evacuation building with openings. The practicability of an estimated wave force using the drag coefficient was confirmed by comparing with the wave force obtained from the fluid analysis. Finally, a sequential structural analysis, with a debris collision phase at the end, was conducted using the ASI-Gauss code to simulate the washout behavior of the building.