Shaking table tests on the seismic response of slopes to near-fault ground motion

The catastrophic earthquake-induced failure of slopes concentrically distributed at near-fault area, which indicated the special features of near-fault ground motions, i.e. horizontal pulse-like motion and large vertical component, should have great effect on these geo-disasters. We performed shaking table tests to investigate the effect of both horizontal pulse-like motion and vertical component on dynamic response of slope. Both unidirectional (i.e., horizontal or vertical motions) and bidirectional (i.e., horizontal and vertical components) motions are applied to soft rock slope model, and acceleration at different locations is reordered. The results show that the horizontal acceleration amplification factor (AAF) increases with height. Moreover, the horizontal AAF under unidirectional horizontal pulse-like excitations is larger than that subject to ordinary motion. The vertical AAF does not show an elevation amplification effect. The seismic response of slope under different bidirectional excitations is also different: (1) The horizontal AAF is roughly constant under horizontal pulse-like excitations with and without vertical waves, but (2) the horizontal AAF under ordinary bidirectional ground motions is larger than that under unidirectional ordinary motion. Above phenomena indicate that vertical component has limited effect on seismic response when the horizontal component is pulse-like ground motion, but it can greatly enhance seismic response of slope under ordinary horizontal motion. Moreover, the vertical AAF is enhanced by horizontal motion in both horizontal pulse-like and ordinary motion. Thence, we should pay enough attention to vertical ground motion, especially its horizontal component is ordinary ground motion.