Seismic response analysis of slope sites exposed to obliquely incident P waves

Abstract

This study proposes a seismic input method for layered slope sites exposed to obliquely-incident seismic waves which transforms the waves into equivalent nodal forces that act on the truncated boundary of a finite element model. The equivalent nodal forces at the left and right boundaries are obtained by combining the free field response of a one-dimensional layered model with a viscoelastic boundary. The equivalent nodal forces at the bottom boundary are obtained by combining the incident wave field with the viscoelastic boundary. This proposed seismic input method for slope sites exposed to obliquely incident seismic waves is implemented with the aid of MATLAB software; it is applied to the seismic response analysis of slope sites in the commercial finite element ABAQUS software. The calculation results are compared with the reference solutions obtained by using the extended model to verify the correctness of the established seismic input method. The proposed seismic input method is then employed to investigate the influencing factors of the seismic response of layered slope sites exposed to oblique incidence P waves. The results show that the angle of incidence, location of the interface between soft and hard rocks, and impedance ratio have significant effects on the seismic landslide.