**Author details**

Halil Sezen *Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA* 

Adem Dogangun

*Department of Civil Engineering, Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey* 

#### **7. References**


Earthquake, and Seismic Design and Construction Practice in Turkey. *Engineering Structures*, Vol. 25, pp. 103-114

[4] Uniform Building Code. (1997). Structural Engineering Design Provisions, Volume 2. International Conference of Building Officials, ICBO. Whittier, California.

200 Earthquake Engineering

**6. Summary and conclusions** 

reporeted in this chapter collapsed (Table 4).

openings were the most common damage types.

region or base of the cylindrical body.

**Author details** 

*Columbus, Ohio, USA* 

Adem Dogangun

**7. References** 

Halil Sezen

Structural damage and failures observed in 59 historical and monumental structures (mosques and/or minarets) were documented after the August 17 and November 12, 1999 earthquakes. The reported damage distribution in minarets in the cities of Düzce and Bolu gives an indication of the extent of damage. Ten percent of all visited mosques collapsed while 20% suffered severe damage. Of all visited minarets, 38 percent collapsed (Figure 6). Five out of seven masonry minarets (approximately 70%) in the cities of Düzce and Bolu

Historical structures with heavy and stiff walls are subjected to larger lateral earthquake forces due to their small periods of vibration. The missing keystones in the upper-floor windows and wide cracks between the stones in the walls above and below window

The location of the failure in the minarets that collapsed during the 1999 earthquakes was generally at the region near the bottom of the cylinder where a transition was made from a square to a circular section. At the bottom of the cylinder body the lateral stiffness and strength are smaller compared with those of the transition region or the minaret base. Consistent with the observed damage, dynamic analysis results from three generic finite element minaret models showed the largest bending stresses in the same region of the minaret models. For minarets with the base or boot attached to the mosque structure (Type II), additional rigidity and stiffness provided by the mosque prevents deformation and damage within the base. In such cases the failure mostly occurs just above the transition

*Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering, The Ohio State University,* 

[1] Turkish Earthquake Code. (1998 and 2007).Specification for structures to be built in disaster areas; Part III—earthquake disaster prevention. Ministry of Public Works and

[2] Turkish Building Code. TS-500 (1985). Building Code Requirements for Reinforced

[3] Sezen, H., Whittaker, A. S., Elwood, K. J., and Mosalam, K. M. (2003). Performance of Reinforced Concrete and Wall Buildings during the August 17, 1999 Kocaeli, Turkey

Concrete. Turkish Standards Institute, Ankara, Turkey (in Turkish).

*Department of Civil Engineering, Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey* 

Settlement, Government of Republic of Turkey.


[18] Dogangun, A., Acar, R., Sezen, H., and Livaoglu, R. (2008). Investigation of Dynamic Response of Masonry Minaret Structures. *Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering*, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 505-517

**Chapter 8** 

© 2012 Zatar and Harik, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 Zatar and Harik, licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Bridge Embankments –** 

Wael A. Zatar and Issam E. Harik

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/48153

the associated cost and effort.

**1. Introduction** 

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

**Seismic Risk Assessment and Ranking** 

Seismic stability analysis and retrofit of earth embankments, including site remediation, has been, to date primarily, focused on embankment dams and earth retaining structures [1]. If a bridge embankment on a priority route is at a high failure risk, soil stabilization may be required, depending on the importance of the bridge. The Seismic Retrofit Manual for Highway Bridges [3] stipulates techniques for assessing the seismic vulnerability of bridges with regard to technical and socio-economic issues. The seismic retrofit manual stipulates that for bridges near unstable slopes, detailed geotechnical investigations should be carried out to assess the potential for slope instability under seismic excitations. The required detailed investigations include material testing, borehole examination, and trenching to check for unstable layers and vertical fissures. However, for the preliminary evaluation of bridges on priority routes the use of detailed geo-technical investigations and sophisticated models are typically limited because of

There is current interest in a careful assessment of the "most critical" embankments along priority routes. In order to achieve this goal, a means of assessing the embankments that qualify as "most critical" is required. Other than the work reported by the authors, almost no complete studies have been reported to identify and prioritize highway embankments that are susceptible to seismic failure. Data regarding soil types and depth of bedrock required for detailed seismic analysis and risk assessment are not available for the majority of bridge embankments. For instance, while the total number of bridges located on both I-24 and the Parkways in western Kentucky is 519 bridges, soil data is only available for few bridge sites. Therefore, the objective of this study is to provide a methodology to conduct seismic evaluations of bridge embankments in order to identify, rank, and prioritize the embankments that are susceptible to seismic failure and are in need of detailed analysis.
