Ground motion characteristics of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, survey of damage to stone masonry structures and structural field tests

Type Journal Article - Frontiers in Built Environment
Title Ground motion characteristics of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, survey of damage to stone masonry structures and structural field tests
Author(s)
Volume 1
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2015
URL http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fbuil.2015.00023/full
Abstract
On April 25, 2015, a M7.8 earthquake rattled central Nepal; ground motion recorded in Kantipath, Kathmandu, 76.86 km east of the epicenter suggested that the low-frequency component was dominant. We consider data from eight aftershocks following the Gorkha earthquake and analyze ground motion characteristics; we found that most of the ground motion records are dominated by low frequencies for events with a moment magnitude >6. The Gorkha earthquake devastated hundreds of thousands of structures. In the countryside, and especially in rural mountainous areas, most of the buildings that collapsed were stone masonry constructions. Detailed damage assessments of stone masonry buildings in Harmi Gorkha was done, with an epicentral distance of about 17 km. Structures were categorized as large, medium, and small depending on their plinth area size and number of stories.

Related studies

»