Development of an Earthquake Ground Motion Simulator For Use in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering Research

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The objective of this project is to design, manufacture, and install an earthquake strong ground motion simulator on the new 100 G-ton geotechnical centrifuge in the Civil Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Because large earthquakes are rare events that occur unexpectedly with respect to both time and geographic location, very little data has been recorded on the resulting strong ground motions and the effects of these motions on earth structures. The installation of the simulator on the new geotechnical centrifuge at RPI will provide a capability to simulate such earthquake- induced strong ground motions in the laboratory. While this does not substitute for the much needed field data from large earthquakes, it nevertheless does provide valuable information for use in earthquake hazard mitigation. This installation will provide the largest such simulation capability in the United States and complements the much smaller units available at several major universities.