Seismic vertical uplift capacity of horizontal strip anchors using pseudo-dynamic approach

Abstract

This paper presents the pseudo-dynamic analysis to determine the seismic vertical uplift capacity of a horizontal strip anchor using upper bound limit analysis. However, in the literature, the pseudo-static approach was used by few researchers to compute the seismic vertical pullout resistance, where the real dynamic nature of earthquake accelerations cannot be considered. Under the seismic conditions, the values of the unit weight component of uplift factor fγE are determined for different magnitudes of soil friction angle, soil amplification, embedment ratio and seismic acceleration coefficients both in the horizontal and vertical directions. It is observed that the uplift factor fγE decreases significantly with the increase in seismic accelerations and amplification but increases with the increase in embedment ratio. The results are compared with the existing values in the literature and the significance of the present methodology for designing the horizontal strip anchor is discussed. In presence of vertical earthquake acceleration and amplification of vibration, the present values of fγE compare reasonably well with the existing pseudo-static values obtained by modifying the horizontal acceleration coefficient. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.