Abstract
Numerical analyses are carried out to evaluate the effects of the soil nonlinearity of diluvial deposit and deep sediment on the earthquake responses of surface ground and buildings. The site studied here is a reclaimed ground in Kobe Port, and input motion is an inverted bedrock motion during the 1995 Hyogoken-nambu earthquake. Effective stress analyses of ground models and nonlinear analyses of building models show that the difference of modeling about soil nonlinearity much affect the earthquake responses of ground and building models. These results suggest that the depth of engineering bedrock is a significant element in seismic design. In addition, it is important to consider properly the soil nonlinearity of deep ground to predict damage level or to study the cause of actual damage.
