Investigation of Earthquake Damage Assessment of Loess Caves of Ancient Buildings Using a Shaking Table

ABSTRACT

Loess Cave is a precious architectural heritage in China and is a highly effective earthquake-resistant underground structure. The seismic performance of the loess cave was studied through shaking table tests to effectively protect traditional Chinese loess caves. The prototype of the loess cave dwellings with memorial and typical in Shaanxi Province was selected using the same production method and local loess, and a loess cave specimen with a 1:5 scale ratio was made. Three seismic waves with different spectral characteristics were applied to the specimen to obtain the damage evolution model and seismic response of the structure under different seismic intensities. A new method of damage assessment combining the structural damage state and dynamic characteristics is proposed, and the earthquake resistance target of loess caves is established. This research has important practical significance for protecting the loess cave dwellings of the typical ancient architecture in Chinese.

KEYWORDS:

• Damage assessment
• damage evolution
• earthquake-resistant target
• loess cave
• seismic response

Acknowledgments

This study was sponsored by Shaanxi Key Scientific and Technological Innovation Team (No. 2019TD-029), Shaanxi S&T Coordinate Innovation Project (No. 2016KTZDSF04-04), Special research program of Yulin University (22GK01), Shaanxi Province of Housing and Urban-rural Development Science and Technology Plan Project (No. 2019-K24) and Natural Science Foundation of Ningxia (No. 2020AAC03046).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Shaanxi Key Scientific and Technological Innovation Team (No. 2019TD-029) (Jianyang Xue), Shaanxi S&T Coordinate Innovation Project (No. 2016KTZDSF04-04) (Fengliang Zhang), Special research program of Yulin University (22GK01) (Juan Du), Shaanxi Province of Housing and Urban-rural Development Science and Technology Plan Project (No. 2019-K24) (Fengliang Zhang) and Natural Science Foundation of Ningxia (No. 2020AAC03046) (Jia Liu).