Torsional phenomena in 2008 great Wenchuan earthquake

Abstract

It is well known that there are some torsional damages in earthquakes. In Taibai park, Jiangyou city, Sichuan province, most of the stone statues, which were placed upon the banisters of one zigzag bridge, exhibited different torsional phenomena in 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. This paper introduces the torsional phenomena of all the statues on the zigzag bridge firstly. Then one eccentricity model is established and the equivalent rotational accelerations are calculated in order to analyze the causes of the torsional damage. In addition, the torsional components are synthesized by using translation accelerations recorded at Jiangyou station in the Wenchuan earthquake. The results show that the equivalent rotational acceleration is larger than the synthesized rotational components, which suggests that the torsional phenomena of the statues on the zigzag bridge might mainly come from its eccentricity. The comparison between the estimated torsional component at Jiangyou and that presented by Trifunac shows that they are in the same order. The research implies that the torsional phenomena in earthquakes are very complicated, and not only caused by torsional motions.