Influence factors on the ground surface rupture zone induced by buried normal fault dislocation

The seismic disaster presents a zonal distribution along the fault strike. In this paper, rupture zone of ground surface soil caused by the uniform dislocation, inclined dislocation and warped dislocation of buried normal fault are studied by constituting a three-dimensional finite element model in Automatic Dynamic Incremental Nonlinear Analysis (ADINA). According to the critical value of surface rupture, the variational features and influencing factors of width and starting position of the "avoiding zone" in engineering construction are analyzed by using 96 model calculations. The main results are as follows: (1) Since the rupture zone of the ground surface soil from the point of mechanics is different from the "avoidance zone" from the point of engineering safety, the equivalent plastic strain and the total displacement ratio should be considered to evaluate the effect of the seismic ground movement on buildings. (2) During fault dislocation, plastic failure firstly occurred on the ground surface soil of the footwall side, and then the larger deformation gradually moved to the side of the hanging wall of the fault with the increase of fault displacement. (3) When the vertical displacement of buried fault reaches 3 m, the width of "avoiding zone" in engineering construction varies within the range of 10–90 m, which is most affected by the thickness of overlying soil and the dip angle of the fault.