Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 126 (2019) 105776

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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/soildyn

A new method for the evaluation of the ultimate seismic capacity of T

rectangular underground structures
Dechun Lua,*, Chao Mab, Xiuli Dua, Xin Wanga
a
Institute of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China
b
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Urban Design, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The ultimate seismic capacity of underground structures should be known to provide a sufficient seismic re-
Rectangular underground structures sistance during the seismic design, due to the irreparable and difficulty of reconstruction after collapsed.
Deformation capacity envelope However, existing single-factor evaluation methods, including inter-story drift ratio, stress, strain, etc., only
Failure ratio present the serviceability seismic capacity and cannot reflect the seismic damage mechanism of underground
Seismic performance level
structures. This paper proposes a performance-based evaluation method to assess the ultimate seismic capacity
Ultimate seismic capacity
of rectangular underground structures by considering both the characteristics of the structure itself and earth-
quake loadings. Ultimate horizontal deformation capacity envelope and failure ratio, derived from the seismic
collapse mechanism of rectangular underground structures, are the key assessment parameters of the ultimate
seismic capacity. Because the horizontal deformation capacity of the underground structures affected by the
vertical loads was taken into account, the obtained ultimate seismic capacity is a band range and expressed with
the PGA of earthquakes. The detailed procedure of the evaluation method is demonstrated step by step.
Afterwards, a case study is presented to evaluate the ultimate seismic capacity of Daikai station influenced by the
spectral characteristics and duration of earthquakes. The predominant periods of earthquakes which the
structure might be sensitive to are discussed. The proposed method provides a detailed understanding of the
performance-based seismic evaluation of rectangular underground structures and can be extended to char-
acterize other seismic performance levels of the rectangular underground structures in the future work.

1. Introduction The method to estimate the seismic capacity of the rectangular

Underground structures such as tunnels, subways, underground
malls and parking lots, etc., are developed rapidly recently and play a
crucial role in achieving sustainable urban development. The rapid
construction of the underground structures also draws special attention
to their seismic performances. The seismic responses of underground
structures, as well as the collapse mode and failure mechanism, were
studies systematically after the Great Hanshin earthquake [1–9].
Practically, the seismic capacity of underground structures is one of the
most important indicators during the code-verified design of under-
ground structures. The current codes provide the serviceability limit
value when underground structures lose their applicability function
before repaired [10–12], whereas, the ultimate state of underground
structures, which is the collapse and uncorrectable state, is not de-
monstrated [13]. Therefore, it is important and necessary to propose an
effective and quantitative approach to evaluating the ultimate seismic
capacity of underground structures.
underground structures in the practical applications is referred to that
of the above-ground structures, although the seismic performances of
these two types of structures are rather different from each other.
Guidelines for Seismic Assessment of Important Civil Engineering
Reinforced Concrete Structures [10,11,14], which is mostly for under-
ground box-type structures, was substantially revised after the Great
Hanshin earthquake. A performance-based design concept was pro-
posed in the Guidelines, and the inter-story drift ratio was introduced to
evaluate the seismic capacity of the rectangular underground struc-
tures. The inter-story drift ratio is also used as the only indicator during
the check calculation of the seismic design of the rectangular under-
ground structures. The serviceability limit value of the inter-story drift
ratio for the seismic resistance of the underground structures to be 1/
100 was considered by Miyagawa et al. [15,16]. Whereas, this servi-
ceability limit value is suggested as 1/250 in Code for Seismic Design of
Urban Rail Transit Structures in China [12]. However, studies presented
that 1/250 as the serviceability limit value seemed too conservative

*
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: dechun@bjut.edu.cn (D. Lu), machao@bucea.edu.cn (C. Ma), duxiuli@bjut.edu.cn (X. Du), xxyy@emails.bjut.edu.cn (X. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2019.105776
Received 30 January 2019; Received in revised form 3 June 2019; Accepted 25 July 2019
Available online 01 August 2019
0267-7261/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
D. Lu, et al.
[17,18]. By discussing the differences between the seismic responses of
the aboveground and underground structures after collecting the ex-
perimental data on the limit inter-story drift ratio of the concrete frame
structures, [18] proposed the inter-story drift ratio of 1/70 as the ser-
viceability limit value for the seismic design of the rectangular under-
ground structures. The inter-story drift ratio was also used as an in-
dicator to illustrate the seismic responses of the rectangular
underground structures [19–22]. Similarly, the drift ratio of columns,
which is obtained by diving the relative horizontal displacement be-
tween the column ends by the height of the columns, was used as the
evaluation index to assess the seismic responses of the columns and
overall structures, when studying the damage mechanism of rectan-
gular underground structures [2,4,7,23]. Therefore, the inter-story drift
ratio, which is directly transplanted from the aboveground structures, is
now as a commonly used indicator to estimate the seismic capacity of
the rectangular underground structures. Meanwhile, only the service-
ability limit values for seismic resistance, not the ultimate values were
suggested either in the existing codes or in recent researches.
The fundamental differences between the seismic performances of
the aboveground and underground structures are that the seismic re-
sponses of underground structures are restricted by the surrounding
soils. Particularly, the vertical inertial forces of the overlying soils to-
gether with the horizontal deformation of surrounding soils are im-
posed on the underground structures during earthquakes [2,4,24–26].
Separately, in the horizontal direction, the seismic responses of the
underground structures are a distortion problem [3]. Thus, the inter-
story drift ratio can be as the indicator to assess the horizontal seismic
capacity of the rectangular underground structures. In the vertical di-
rection, the underground structures generally carry the gravity of the
overlying soils as well as the vertical inertial forces of the overlying
soils caused by earthquakes [8,27]. The ceiling of the structures
transmits the vertical forces to the central columns and side walls,
which weakens the horizontal deformation capacity of the columns
significantly. Therefore, the ultimate deformation capacity of the un-
derground structures could no longer be a constant value but influenced
by the vertical forces. The indicator of the inter-story drift ratio with a
constant value is not enough to illustrate the ultimate load carrying and
deformation capacities of the underground structures. Then [17] ap-
plied the inter-story drift ratio coupling with the effective stress to
evaluate the ultimate seismic capacity of the rectangular underground
structures. The compressive strain of concrete with the maximum value
of 1% was used to other types of underground structures [28]. The
characteristics and the distribution of the lining cracks were applied to
assess the damage patterns of tunnels [29]. However, these indicators,
including the inter-story drift ratio, stress, strain, etc., cannot be applied
to grasp the seismic behaviours and collapse mechanism of the under-
ground structures during earthquakes reasonably. Hence, the vertical
seismic loadings changing the horizontal deformation capacity of the
underground structures cannot be ignored when studying the
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the horizontal deformation capacities of the central columns and walls.
2
Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 126 (2019) 105776
evaluation method of the ultimate seismic capacity of the underground
structures.
During the Great Hanshin earthquake, the single-story of Daikai
station with width of 17.0 m collapsed, whereas, the single-story section
with width of 9.0 m and the double-story section of the structure did not
collapse [4]. Meanwhile, other structures similar with Daikai station
also did not collapse during this earthquake [30]. It indicates that the
ultimate seismic capacity of the underground structures is not only
influenced by the characteristics of the structure itself and the site
conditions [31,32], but also by the characteristics of earthquakes, in-
cluding the PGA, duration and spectral characteristics [33–37]. In other
words, for a determined underground structure, its ultimate seismic
capacity should include the load carrying capacity of the structure and
the seismic resistance limit influenced by the characteristics of earth-
quakes. Obviously, the evaluation method of the ultimate seismic ca-
pacity of the underground structure is no more giving an indicator with
the exact value, but should be a variable depending on the character-
istics of the structure and earthquakes.
This study aims to present a new evaluation method to assess the
ultimate seismic capacity of rectangular underground structures, in
which the ultimate horizontal deformation capacity envelope and a
failure ratio are introduced. The ultimate horizontal deformation ca-
pacity of a rectangular underground structure is represented by the
ultimate horizontal deformation capacity of the critical components for
seismic resistance. The failure ratio is defined as a criterion to describe
the performance level of the ultimate horizontal deformation capacity.
Then the ultimate seismic capacity of the rectangular underground
structures is proposed and expressed the PGA of earthquakes.
Moreover, the ultimate seismic capacity of the underground structures
influenced by the characteristics of earthquakes were also discussed.
2. Seismic collapse mechanism of the rectangular underground
structure
Great works have been conducted to study the collapse mode and
failure mechanism of the rectangular underground structures by taking
Daikai station as an example [2,4,24–26]. It is concluded that the
horizontal deformation capacity of the structure is mainly controlled by
the horizontal deformation capacities of the columns and walls. Fig. 1
presents the sketches of the horizontal deformation capacity envelopes
of the columns and walls of Daikai station. In this figure, Δ represents
the horizontal deformation of the components, which is the horizontal
relative displacement between the top and bottom ends. Δc(Nc) and
Δw(Nc) represent the ultimate horizontal deformation capacities of the
columns and walls, respectively. The normalized axial force, Nc, is
obtained by diving the axial stress by the design value of the axial
compressive strength of concrete, fc [38]. Herein, fc = fck/1.40, fck is
the standard value of the axial compressive strength of concrete. Nc,c0
and Nc,w0 represent the normalized axial forces of the columns and
D. Lu, et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 126 (2019) 105776

walls before earthquakes, respectively, and Δc0 and Δw0 are the corre-
sponding ultimate horizontal deformation capacities of the columns and
walls. Before earthquakes occur, although Nc,c0 > Nc,w0, Δc0 > Δw0.
The Nc within the columns and walls will change during earthquakes.
The Nc within the columns increases remarkably, whereas, the Nc
within the walls does not change significantly during earthquakes
[4,7,39]. In this sense, the horizontal deformation capacity of the col-
umns decreases rapidly and that of the walls almost keeps as a constant
[7,8], consequently, the horizontal deformation capacity of the columns
is rather worse than that of the walls. Then the columns will lose their
load carrying capacity firstly which lead to the broken of the ceiling and
the collapse of the overall structure. Therefore, the collapse of this
structure is attributed to the incompatibility between the deformation
capacities of the columns and walls, especially, the insufficient hor-
izontal deformation capacity of the structure [2,8]. The central columns
are the weakest and critical components for the seismic design of the
rectangular underground structures.

3. Methodology

According to the seismic performances and collapse mechanism of

the rectangular underground structure, there are two basic meanings of
the ultimate seismic capacity of the underground structure: (1) what is
the ultimate load carrying or deformation state of the underground
structure, (2) what kind of earthquakes could compel the underground
structure to reach its ultimate state. The former meaning is a descrip-
tion of structural characteristics, and the latter one is the structural
responses affected by the external factors.

3.1. Description of the evaluation method

Based on the two basic meanings of the ultimate seismic capacity of
the underground structure, this study proposes a new evaluation
method which basic flow is shown in Fig. 2. The procedures are divided
into the following six steps:
Step 1. Investigate the seismic collapse mechanism of the underground
structure with specific structural style.
Step 2. Determine the seismic critical component for seismic resistance
based on the collapse mode and failure mechanism.
Step 3. Determine the ultimate load carrying (or deformation) capacity
of the critical component, AU, and treat AU as the ultimate load carrying
(or deformation) capacity of the overall structure. AU reflects the
structural characteristics.
Step 4. Define the failure ratio, fr, to quantitatively evaluate the
performance level of the load carrying (or deformation) capacity. fr
reflects the responses of the structure under the external loadings.
Step 5. Simulate the seismic responses of the underground structure by
adjusting the PGA of an earthquake till the maximum value of fr equals
1 (fr = 1). Record the PGA, the ultimate seismic capacity of the
underground structure is expressed as (PGAH, PGAV). Herein, PGAH
and PGAV represent as the PGA of the horizontal component and
vertical component of the earthquake, respectively.
Step 6. Simulate the seismic responses of the underground structure
under earthquakes with different characteristics, a cluster of the
ultimate seismic capacities of the underground structure can be
obtained. These ultimate seismic capacities form a PGA band range.
This is the basic flow of the evaluation method of the ultimate
seismic capacity of the rectangular underground structures. The pro-
posed evaluation method of the ultimate seismic capacity can not only
reflect the structural characteristics, but also reflect the characteristics
of external loadings influencing the seismic responses of underground
structures. Afterwards, the main works are the derivation of the as-
sessment parameters, AU, fr and the derivation of (PGAH, PGAV).
Fig. 2. Basic flow of the ultimate seismic capacity evaluation of the rectangular
underground structure.
3.2. Horizontal ultimate deformation capacity envelope of underground
structures
As discussed in Section 2, the central column is the critical com-
ponent of the rectangular structures, whereas, the ultimate horizontal
deformation capacity of the central column depends on the axial forces
[2,8]. Therefore, when calculate the ultimate horizontal deformation
capacity of the central column, the actual working states should be
followed. Detailedly, the boundary conditions and loading program are
as shown in Fig. 3. The bottom end of the column is completely fixed,
then an axial load is imposed at the top end of the column to keep the
Nc as a constant, afterwards, impel the top end of the column to move
translationally along the X direction till the failure of the column. The
simulation test is obviously the pushover test. Monitor the horizontal
shear force at the bottom of the column during the loading process. In
the following analyses the drift ratioθ but the horizontal deformation Δ
is used to represent the deformation capacity. θ is calculated as:
Δ
θ= × 100%
h (1)
herein, h is the height of the columns.
One pushover simulation on the central column of Daikai station
was carried out and the obtained relationship between the drift ratio
and the horizontal shear force is plotted in Fig. 3. The central columns
have a cross-section of 0.40 m × 1.00 m, with reinforcement ratio
6.0%, and the arrangement of the reinforcement is also presented in
Fig. 3(a). It illustrates that the horizontal shear force of the column
increases firstly and then decreases with the increase of θ. Particularly,
the horizontal shear force decreases rapidly after the peak value of the
horizontal shear force.
3.2.1. Failure criterion
Studies from Ref. [8] concluded that the collapse of Daikai station

3
D. Lu, et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 126 (2019) 105776

Fig. 5. Horizontal deformation capacities of the column within different Nc.

shear force are plotted in Fig. 5. The points on each curve are the ul-
timate states of the columns within the corresponding Nc which is the
numbers on the curve. Fig. 5 presents that the deformation capacity at
the ultimate states of the column decreases with the increase of the Nc.
Fig. 5 illustrates the ultimate deformation capacity of the column
within 13 normalized axial forces. Herein, we use the interpolation
method to give the ultimate deformation capacity envelope of the
column, which is assumed that the ultimate deformation capacity be-
tween each two adjacent normalized axial forces satisfies the linear
relation. Then by supplementing the ultimate compressive and tensile
carrying capacities of the column (points A and B in Fig. 6), the ultimate
deformation capacity envelope of the column is obtained and plotted in
Fig. 6. The ultimate deformation capacity envelope of the column is
used to estimate whether the underground structure loses its load car-
rying capacity.
Fig. 3. Horizontal deformation curve of the columns.
Note that each underground structure has a unique ultimate de-
formation capacity envelope which reflects the characteristics of the
underground structure itself. When the seismic responses of the col-
umns fall inside of the ultimate deformation capacity envelope of the
column during an earthquake, the structure could survive.
Alternatively, if the seismic responses of the column intersect with the
ultimate deformation capacity envelope of the column during an
earthquake, the structure will collapse during this earthquake.

3.3. Failure ratio of underground structures

The failure ratio fr(t), should be used to describe by the scale rela-
tion between the seismic responses and the deformation capacity of the
underground structures. Therefore, it is defined as diving the drift ratio
of the column at each state by its ultimate drift ratio within the same Nc.
The definition of fr(t) is presented as Eq. (2) and Fig. 7.

Fig. 4. Time history of the θ of the central column [8].

began from 6.50 s, at which time the Nc and θ of the column are re-
spectively 0.62 and 1.91%, shown in Fig. 4. The ultimate deformation
capacity of the column with Nc = 0.62 is determined to be 1.91%.
1.91% is 1.3 times of the θp which is the θ when the shear force reaches
its peak value. Note that θ = 1.3 × θp is related to the collapse of the
structure. Similarly, when calculating the ultimate deformation capa-
city of the column within different Nc, the θ value equal to 1.3 times of
the θp is defined as the ultimate deformation capacity of the column.

3.2.2. Ultimate horizontal deformation capability envelope

The pushover simulations of the column with the Nc = 0, 0.11, 0.23,
0.34, 0.45, 0.68, 0.91, 1.14, 1.36, 1.59, 1.82, and 2.04 were also con-
ducted, and the obtained relationships between the θ and the horizontal Fig. 6. Ultimate deformation capacity envelop of the column.

4
D. Lu, et al.
Fig. 7. Definition of the failure ratio.
seismic responses θ (t , Nc )
fr (t ) = =
deformation capacity θ U (Nc )
where, θ(t, Nc) is the drift ratio of the column at t moment during
earthquakes and the corresponding normalized axial force is Nc, θU(Nc)
is the ultimate deformation capacity of the column with the normalized
axial force of Nc.
fr(t) reflects the performance level of the ultimate seismic capacity
of underground structures at each moment during earthquakes. The
maximum value, frmax, of fr(t) can be used to determine whether the
seismic responses of underground structures exceed the ultimate
seismic capacity. ① When frmax < 1, the maximum seismic responses of
underground structures do not exceed the ultimate deformation capa-
city. ② When frmax = 1, the maximum seismic responses of underground
structures equal the ultimate deformation capacity, i.e., the earthquake
is the strongest earthquake that underground structures can resist
without collapse failure. ③ When frmax > 1, the seismic responses of
underground structures have exceeded the ultimate deformation capa-
city. Fig. 8 presents the fr time history of Daikai station in the Hanshin
earthquake. It presents that fr(6.50) reaches to 1, which means the
structure collapsed from this moment.
3.4. Ultimate seismic capacity of rectangular underground structures
expressed with PGA
What kind of earthquakes could compel underground structures to
reach their ultimate state? For a certain underground structure, the
ultimate seismic capacities are different for earthquakes with different
characteristics due to the randomness of earthquakes. In other words,
when an underground structure is subjected to earthquakes with dif-
ferent characteristics, the obtained ultimate seismic capacity PGAH
Fig. 8. Failure ratio time history of Daikai station.
Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 126 (2019) 105776
might be the same but the PGAV might be unequal, vice versa.
Moreover, the PGAH moment is not exactly the PGAV moment. When a
larger number of earthquake records with various characteristics are
used to analyze the seismic responses of an underground structure, the
obtained ultimate seismic capacity will be a PGA band range, which
reflects the earthquake loadings influencing the ultimate seismic ca-
pacity of the underground structure. Obviously, earthquakes only re-
lated to the site conditions should be used for a specific structure.
3.4.1. Selection of earthquake records
Daikai station is regarded as an example to evaluate the ultimate
seismic capacity of the rectangular underground structures. This
structure has an outer dimension of 17.00 m width and 7.17 m height.
The wall thickness is 0.70 m with average reinforcement ratio 0.8%.
The thicknesses of the ceiling and bottom slabs are 0.80 m and 0.85 m,
respectively, with average reinforcement ratio 1.0%. The detail in-
formation of the central columns is presented in Fig. 3(a). The clear
distance between columns in the longitudinal direction is 2.50 m.
(2) Four earthquake records measured during the Great Hanshin
earthquake, Chi-Chi earthquake, Wenchuan earthquake and Kumamoto
earthquake, which caused severe damage to underground structures,
were applied during the simulations. The horizontal and vertical ac-
celerations of these four records are presented in Fig. 9. The Fourier
spectrums of the four earthquake records are shown in Fig. 10. The
predominant frequencies of the horizontal component of the earth-
quake records range from 0.4Hz to 1.2Hz. The predominant frequencies
of the vertical component range from 0.7 Hz to 10.0 Hz. These earth-
quakes can represent the earthquakes that the structure may be suffered
due to the wide range of the predominant frequencies.
3.4.2. Numerical model for simulation
All the analysis methods, including the numerical simulation
method, simplified analysis method, pseudo-dynamic analysis method,
etc., could be used to estimate the ultimate seismic capacity of under-
ground structures. The 3D FEM numerical simulation method is used in
the following study. A 3D FEM model of Daikai Station with dimensions
of 100 m long, 20 m width and 30 m high was built for the nonlinear
numerical analysis, which is shown in Fig. 11. The viscoelastic artificial
boundary condition is used to simulate the influence of the infinite field
on the computational domain, and the wave field decomposition
method is used to implement the seismic input [40]. Penalty Function
Method is used to model the dynamic contact behaviour between the
soil and the underground structure. In the normal direction of the in-
terface, the normal contact compressive stress mutually transfers via
the contact constraint. The element nodes on the surfaces satisfy Hoo-
ke's Law and the Harmonized Condition of Displacement. The Cou-
lomb's friction law is used to simulate the tangential mechanics beha-
viour. Referring to the studies of [4,7,8]; the friction coefficient
between the soil and structure is set as 0.4.
The plastic damage model is used to describe the behaviour of the
concrete. The corresponding material parameters are list as, density
2500 kg/m3, Poisson's ratio 0.2, Young's modulus 30 GPa, initial com-
pression yield stress 18.8 MPa, limited compression yield stress
26.8 MPa, and initial tensile yield stress 2.4 MPa [7,8,41]. An elasto-
plastic constitutive model developed for soil [7,8,42–44] is used to
describe the 3D strength property and strain softening behaviour under
earthquake loadings. The material parameters of the soil are density
1960 kg/m3, frictional angle 35○, Poisson's ratio 0.3, initial pore ratio
0.6, isotropic compression index 0.12 and swelling index 0.008. The
steel in the structure is modelled by the ideal elastoplastic model, with
density 7800 kg/m3, Poisson's ratio 0.1, Young's modulus 200 GPa,
yield stress 240 MPa.
3.4.3. Process to determine the ultimate seismic capacity of the underground
structure
During the seismic design or dynamic analysis of underground
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D. Lu, et al.
Fig. 9. Four earthquake records for analyses.
structures, the PGA of earthquakes is usually adjusted to satisfy the
seismic fortification criterion of underground structures, and then
analyzed the seismic responses of underground structures. The similar
method will be used in the following study to calculate frmax. Define an
amplitude adjusting coefficient, n, and the process of the amplitude
adjusting is as follows.
a′max = n·amax
a′(t) = n·a(t)
where, a(t) is the acceleration of the original earthquake records, a′(t) is
the acceleration of the adjusted earthquake records, amax is PGA of the
original earthquake records, and a′max is PGA of the adjusted earth-
quake records. During the adjusting, the amplitude of horizontal or
vertical component of earthquake records should be fixed, then ad-
justing coefficient of another component till frmax = 1. Record the ad-
justing coefficient n. Calculate the ultimate seismic capacity (PGAH,
PGAV) base on the adjusting coefficient n.
The calculated ultimate seismic capacity of Daikai station only
under the horizontal component of the Hanshin earthquake is (0.65g,
0.00g), which is shown as Point A in Fig. 12, and the ultimate seismic
capacity only under the vertical component is (0.00g, 1.37g) which is
shown as Point B in Fig. 12. When both horizontal and vertical com-
ponents of the Hanshin earthquake are used to evaluate the seismic
responses of Daikai station, it can obtain an infinite number of the ul-
timate seismic capacities. One of them was calculated and plotted in
Fig. 12, then the ultimate seismic capacity curve can be fitted. The
curve in Fig. 12 is the ultimate seismic capacity of Daikai station to the
Hanshin earthquake.
Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 126 (2019) 105776
3.4.4. Ultimate seismic capacity band range
The ultimate seismic capacities of Daikai station to the records of
Chi-Chi earthquake, Wenchuan earthquake and the Kumamoto earth-
quake were also calculated and plotted in Fig. 13. Due to the differences
in the characteristics of the earthquakes, the obtained ultimate seismic
capacities are also different. The ultimate seismic capacities of Daikai
station to the Hanshin earthquake is smaller than those to other
(3)
earthquakes. When the PGAs of the four earthquakes are equal, the
(4) seismic response of the underground structure under the Hanshin
earthquake is strongest, and the seismic response under the Chi-Chi
earthquake is slight. The intensities of the seismic responses of the
structure under the Wenchuan earthquake and the Kumamoto earth-
quake are between those under other two earthquakes.
The ultimate seismic capacities of Daikai station to each earthquake
constitute a band range, which is shown in Fig. 13. Certainly, when
more earthquake records are used, the ultimate seismic capacities of the
structure will be satiation and the band range will be stable. Conse-
quently, it is more reasonable to evaluate the seismic performance of
the underground structure using the band range. This band range di-
vides all the PGA areas into three sections, Section I, II and III. When
the PGAH and PGAV of an earthquake fall into Section I, it is not a fatal
earthquake for the structure. Daikai station will not collapse during this
earthquake. However, if the PGAH and PGAV of an earthquake fall into
Section III, the structure will collapse in this earthquake. If the structure
suffers an earthquake with PGA falls into Section II, it is in a relatively
dangerous state, then the numerical simulation must be conducted by
using earthquakes related to the site condition.
On the other hand, the seismic performance of an underground
structure during a certain earthquake can also be forecasted according
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D. Lu, et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 126 (2019) 105776

Fig. 12. Ultimate seismic capacity of Daikai station to the Hanshin earthquake.

Fig. 10. Fourier spectrum of four earthquakes.

Fig. 13. Seismic performances of Daikai station.

Fig. 11. Finite element model for the numerical simulations.

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D. Lu, et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 126 (2019) 105776

to the band range shown in Fig. 13. For example, when Daikai station
suffers an earthquake with PGA of (0.8g, 0.15g), which is Point M
shown in Fig. 13, the structure indeed is in a relatively dangerous state.
If the spectral characteristics of the earthquake are also known, the
seismic performance of the structure is determined. This illustrates the
uniqueness of the evaluation method: the seismic performance of an
underground structure can be uniquely determined once the band range
of the ultimate seismic capacities and the characteristics of an earth-
quake are known.
In summary, there are two steps to estimate the seismic perfor-
mances of an underground structure. ① preliminary evaluation: PGA of
earthquakes can be used to determine which state of the underground
structure being in, safe, relative safe or dangerous states (range I, II or
III). ② detailed evaluation: when the seismic performance of an un-
derground structure is in range II, numerical simulations should be
conducted. Note that, the acquisition of the band range of ultimate
seismic capacity of a specific structure needs a lot of works, however,
once the band range is given, it will be easy to estimate the seismic
performance of the structure under an earthquake.

4. Case application

Fig. 14 presents the PGA of many earthquakes, which are the points Fig. 15. Evaluating the seismic responses of Daikai station with the ultimate
shown in the figure. These points fall in all the three sections. Simulate seismic capacity.
the seismic responses of Daikai station under each earthquake and
obtain frmax. Plot the PGA of the earthquakes and the obtained frmax in
Fig. 15. It is found that the seismic response of the structure determined
by frmax is consistent with that determined by the ultimate seismic ca-
pacity shown in Fig. 14. This proves that it is reasonable to use the
proposed evaluation method to estimate the ultimate seismic capacity
of underground structures.

4.1. Spectral characteristics of earthquakes influencing the ultimate seismic

capacity

The ultimate seismic capacity and seismic responses of underground

structures are mainly determined by the PGA of earthquakes, mean-
while, are significantly affected by the spectral characteristics of
earthquakes. The closer of the predominant periods of an underground
structure and earthquakes, the more intensively of the seismic re-
sponses of the structure. Fig. 16 shows the acceleration spectrum of the
applied four earthquake records. The predominant periods of the hor-
izontal components satisfy TH-Kumamoto < TH-Wenchuan < TH-Chi-Chi <
TH-Hanshin, and predominant periods of the vertical components satisfy
TV-Wenchuan < TV-Kumamoto < TV-Hanshin < TV-Chi-Chi. Fig. 14 presents
that the ultimate seismic capacities are PGAH-Hanshin < PGAH-Chi-

Fig. 16. Acceleration response spectrums of the four earthquakes.

Chi < PGAH-Wenchuan < PGAH-Kumamoto when PGAV = 0. When

PGAH = 0, the ultimate seismic capacities are PGAV-Hanshin < PGAV-Chi-
Chi ≈ PGAV-Kumamoto < PGAV-Wenchuan. The relation among the pre-
Fig. 14. Ultimate seismic capacity of the underground structure and the PGA of dominant periods of the horizontal earthquake components is con-
ground motions. sistent with the relation among the ultimate seismic capacities.

8
D. Lu, et al.
Fig. 17. Time history of failure ratio. t1: PGAH moment of Hanshi earthquake.
t2: PGAH moment of Chi-Chi earthquake.
Therefore, for an underground structure similar with Daikai station,
when subjected to an earthquake like the Hanshin earthquake, the
seismic response of the structure is strongest.
4.2. Duration of earthquakes influencing the ultimate seismic capacity
Duration of earthquakes affecting the seismic response of under-
ground structures can be reflected by the accumulation of the damage
of the structure. When using the elasto-plastic or plastic-damage con-
stitutive models simulating the seismic responses of underground
structures, the duration effect can be reflected by the change of fr.
Fig. 17 shows the fr time history of Daikai station under the Hanshin
and Chi-Chi earthquakes. Compared with Fig. 9, it illustrates that the
frmax moment is not exactly the PGA moment due to the accumulation
of the damage of the structure. When the non-pulse shape earthquakes
hit Daikai station, such as the Hanshin earthquake, fr progressively
increase during earthquakes. The frmax moment is not the PGA moment,
the change of fr clearly demonstrates the damage accumulation of the
underground structure. However, when the pulse shape earthquakes hit
Daikai station, such as the Chi-Chi earthquake, fr reaches its maximum
value at the PGA moment. In addition, fr does not reduce to zero after
earthquakes, which indicates that the structure produces a permanent
deformation during earthquakes.
5. Discussion and outlook
The performance-based seismic evaluation becomes important in
identifying the performance levels of seismic capacity of an under-
ground structure and in understanding the failure modes during seismic
events [45]. In fact, the performance-based evaluation can be viewed as
a multi-level evaluation approach. This study just focuses on the col-
lapse state of the rectangular underground structures. If the criteria of
other performance levels were defined, the corresponding seismic
performance capacity can also be evaluated.
The backbone of this evaluation method is comprehensively
grasping the critical component controlling the collapse and the per-
formance level of the deformation capacity of underground structures
during earthquakes. The superiority of the proposed method is that the
seismic performance of underground structures affected by character-
istics of both the underground structure itself and earthquakes can be
reflected. When the methodology is extended to characterize other
seismic performance levels of underground structures, the assessment
parameters, including the critical component and corresponding
seismic performance levels of underground structures should be de-
termined, such as the beginning of yield, first crack, severe damage and
9
Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 126 (2019) 105776
Fig. 18. Force-drift ratio curve of the critical component for seismic perfor-
mance levels.
collapse states, which are the Points A, B, C and D presented in Fig. 18.
Probably, the critical components for different seismic performance
levels might be different. However, the basic outline is same, and the
performance levels would be calculated and can also be expressed with
the PGA.
6. Conclusion remarks
This study presented a novel evaluation method to assess the ulti-
mate seismic capacity of rectangular underground structures. The ul-
timate deformation capacity of underground structures was represented
by the ultimate deformation capacity of the critical components for
seismic resistance. A failure ratio was defined to estimate the perfor-
mance level of the load carrying capacity of underground structures
during earthquakes. Then the band range of the ultimate seismic ca-
pacity of underground structures was determined by taking into ac-
count the characteristics of earthquakes and was expressed by the PGA.
Each underground structure has a unique ultimate seismic capacity for
a determined earthquake and has a unique band range of the ultimate
seismic capacities.
The proposed evaluation method was applied to evaluate the
seismic performance and ultimate seismic capacity of Daikai Station.
The ultimate seismic capacities of the station constitute a band range
which divides all the PGA areas into safe, relative safe and dangerous
sections. PGA of earthquakes is used for the preliminary evaluation that
the state of the structure being in. The spectral characteristics of
earthquakes are used detailedly evaluate the seismic performance of the
underground structure. Moreover, the duration of earthquakes influ-
encing the ultimate seismic capacity of the structure was also discussed.
The proposed evaluation methodology provides a good idea for
more comprehensive performance-based evaluation of underground
structures. In the future works, multiple levels of performance criteria
objectives could be simultaneously considered to evaluate the seismic
capacity performance levels of underground structures.
Acknowledgement
This study was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51778026, 51808028 and U1839201),
the National Natural Science Foundation of Beijing (8184067) and the
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019T120043).
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