Earthquake responses of near-fault building clusters in mountain city considering viscoelasticity of earth medium and process of fault rupture

- An integrated method is presented to study seismic responses of building clusters.
- The integral type of GZB constitutive equations with history variables is adopted.
- Surface topography of viscoelastic earth medium and fault rupture are considered.
- Building clusters are composed of plane frame structures.
- Seismic responses of building clusters in near-fault mountain city can be studied.

A new algorithm is proposed to implement viscoelastic wave propagation in earth medium with surface topography by introducing history variables into integral type GZB constitutive equations and by using the recursive formulae of these history variables. Combining the proposed algorithm with the flexural wave algorithm for frame structure and the algorithm for bidirectional wave propagation, a new type of integrated method is developed for earthquake response analyses of near-fault building clusters in mountain city due to rupture of causative fault. The earthquake responses of building clusters of frame structures situated at different sites of a mountain in Chongqing city, China, are studied during a hypothetical Mw 6.2 near-fault earthquake. The numerical results show that, for the multi-story buildings, the maximum peak value of beam-end bending moments appears in the building on the hill top and the earthquake risk positions are mainly at the bottom and/or the top of the buildings. For the high-rise buildings, the maximum peak value of beam-end bending moments appears in the building on the mountainside and the earthquake risk positions are mainly at the bottom and/or the middle of the buildings.