Study on seismic behavior of special levees of rivers using centrifuge dynamic tests

Abstract

Since we concern about physical damage of levees due to liquefaction by a large earthquake such as the anticipated Tokyo Metropolitan earthquake and the Nankai trough earthquake, we are strongly involved in examining seismic countermeasures for special levees in urban areas as well as for natural levees. However, the detailed research on nonlinear seismic behaviors for special levees induced by a strong ground motion and liquefaction has not been promoted enough until now. Hence, by dynamic centrifuge experiments we clarified nonlinear dynamic behavior of a special levee and verified the effectiveness of seismic countermeasures for existing special levees. In addition, we improved the models of horizontal load acting onto a seismic countermeasure by comparing the values by current design procedure and the experimental values.