Kuo-Liang Wen (Institute of Geophysics, National Central Univ.)
Taiwan is located on the Circum-Pacific seismic belt. It is well known that seismicity of the Taiwan area is very high. As such, safeguarding lives and property from the destructive effects of earthquakes is a major concern of the people in the region. The damaging effects of earthquakes are primarily caused by strong ground shaking. Reduction of life and property losses from strong ground shaking require conscientious application of construction codes and earthquake resistant design, enforcement of adequate land-use policies as well as implementation of appropriate retrofits measures. The implementation of these mitigation measures must be based in large part on the recordings from large earthquakes. Such data are crucial for designing earthquake resistant structures and understanding the source mechanism of earthquakes and the propagation of seismic waves from source to site, including the local site effects. The last several years have seen an amazing growth in strong motion seismology. The most important work was setup the very dense strong motion observation network in Taiwan area, including free-field and downhole stations. The strong motion network in Taiwan includes SMA-1 network, SMART II, TSMIP, LSST network, and downhole arrays in the Taipei Basin. These data provide an excellent opportunity to study the source, path, and site effects on the ground motions. Nonlinear soil response analyzed from the observed records have very interesting results. Other research activities such as numerical modeling, physical modeling etc. also grow up quickly during the past several years.
SMA-1 network:
An island wide strong motion network, which includes 109 accelerographs, is
operated by the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica (IESAS) since 1974.
First strong motion record by this network was in April 1976. The purpose of this
network is mainly for studying the earthquake source, structure responses, the
attenuation of ground motions and risk analysis. Accelerometers include 48 analog
and 61 digital recording system. Most of them are installed on free-field site, but also
has some are on the manmade structures (Chian et al., 1991; Chiu et al., 1992; Huang
et al., 1994)
[Operated by: IESAS, http://www.earth.sinica.edu.tw]
Fig1. The location and configuration of the SMART-2 array including 40 free- field stations and two downhole vertical arrays |
Fig 2 The location and configuration of the TSMIP |
LSST network:
The Lotung Large Scale Seismic Test Program (LSST) is a joint project between
the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) and the Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI). The Institute of Earth Sciences (IES), Academia Sinica, is a contractor of
Taipower to perform instrumentation installation and maintenance, and data collection,
reduction and analysis. By the end of October 1985, all instruments were installed by
the engineers of IES and successfully commissioned by the engineers of manufactory.
In the initial phase of the instrumentation, four types of gauges were installed in
the field for data acquisition. They are surface accelerometer, downhole accelerometer,
structural response accelerometer and interfacial pressure transducer. Except pressure
transducer, all others are triaxial strong motion accelerometer. The outputs of all
accelerometers and pressure gauges are transmitted by hard wire to the central
recording device. LSST1 closed at the end of 1990.
To record the near-field ground motion for an earthquake, a potential site was
selected at Hualien Veteran's Marble Plant as being promising site for the deployment
of LSST2 in eastern Taiwan. There are two models deployed in LSST2. One is the
1/4-scale cylindrical containment model and another is the cylindrical
liquid-storage-tank model which away 40 meters from the containment model. The
former started in September 1993 and the latter started in September 1995.
In this phase of the instrumentation, fifteen surface accelerometers, twelve
downhole accelerometers and fifteen containment structure response accelerometers
were installed in cylindrical containment model for data acquisition. All stations are
instrumented witha three-component force-balance accelerometer. On the other hand,
the cylindrical liquid-storage-tank model consists four three-component
accelerometers and nineteen one-component accelerometers.
[Operated by: IESAS, http://www.earth.sinica.edu.tw]
Fig 3 Locations of the strong motion stations in Taipei basin. Open triangles show the TSMIP network in the Taipei area. Solid triangles denote the positions of downhole array sites. |
Chian, C. C., T. Y. Hou, C. C. Liu, and Y. T. Yeh (1991).Observation report of the strong motion station at Liyutanreservoir, Open-file report of the IESAS. Chiu, H. C., S. D. Ni, H. C. Huang, C. C. Liu, C. Z. Lin, and Y. T. Yeh (1992). Effects of the Canyon topography and the dam site behavior under the strong earthquake - (I) Installation and testing report of the strong motion seismometer, Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Open-file Report IESCR92-002. Chiu, H. C., Y. T. Yeh, S. D. Ni, L. Lee, W. H. Liu, G. F. Wen, and C. C. Liu (1994). A new strong-motion array in Taiwan : SMART-2, Ter. Atm. Oce., 5, 463-475. Huang, C. F., L. Chiang, C. C. Tsai, T. Y. Hou, W. S. Liu, and C. C. Liu (1994). Strong-motion observations around the Liyutan reservoir area, Taiwan, Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Open-file Report, 27pp. Kuo, K. W., T. C., Shin, and K. L. Wen (1995). Taiwan strong motion instrumentation program (TSMIP) and preliminary analysis of site effects in Taipei basin from strong motion data, in Urban Disaster Mitigation: The Role of Engineering and Technology, Edited by F. Y. Cheng and M.-S. Sheu, Elsevier Science, 47-62. Liu, K. S., T. C. Shin, W.H.K. Lee, and T. B. Tsai (1994). Taiwan strong-motion instrumentation program ? The characteristic comparison of free-field accelerographs, Meteorological Bull., Central Weather Bureau, 39, 3, 132-150. Shin, T. C. (1993). Progress summary of the Taiwan Strong Motion Instrumentation Program, Proc. of the Symposium on Taiwan Strong Motion Instrumentation Wen, K. L., Y. T. Yeh, and Y. H. Yeh (1994). Study of basin effects on Seismic wave (I), Central Geological Survey, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Report 83-018. Wen, K. L., H. Y. Peng, L. F. Liu, and T. C. Shin (1995). Basin effects analysis from a dense strong motion observation network, Earthq. Eng. Struct. Dyn., 24, 8, 1069-1083. Wen, K. L., Y. T. Yeh, C. C. Liu, H. Y. Peng, L. F. Liu, and C. F. Wen (1999). Study of the basin effects on seismic waves, Special issue for the subsurface geology and engineering environment of Taipei basin, Spec. Publ. Central Geological Survey, No. 11. Yeh, Y. T., K. L. Wen, and Y. H. Yeh (1994). Study of basin effects on Seismic wave (I), Central Geological Survey, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Report 83-004.