Effects of long duration earthquakes on the interaction of inertial and liquefaction-induced kinematic demands on pile-supported wharves

Nonlinear dynamic analyses were performed to evaluate the effects of ground motion duration on the dynamic response of a pile-supported wharf subjected to liquefaction-induced lateral ground deformations. The numerical model was first calibrated using recorded data from a well-instrumented centrifuge test, after which incremental dynamic analyses were conducted using a suite of spectrally matched motions with different durations. The nonlinear dynamic analyses were performed to evaluated three loading scenarios: combined effects of inertial loads from the wharf deck and kinematic loads from ground deformations, deck inertial loads only in the absence of liquefaction (with minimal kinematic loads), and kinematic loads only in the absence of deck mass inertia. The analysis results were evaluated to provide insights on the relative contribution of inertial and kinematic demands on the response of the wharf with respect to motion duration. It was found that the contribution of peak inertial and peak kinematic loads to the maximum total demand increases only slightly with motion duration and intensity. The response of the wharf was found to be primarily governed by kinematic demands when subjected to long-duration motions for the type of foundation analyzed in this study which is commonly used in the port industry.