Earthquake Response of Submerged Circular Arch

Abstract

A Green's function approach is utilized to calculate the dynamic response of a long, submerged, cylindrical shell structure subjected to horizontal or vertical ground excitation. The problem is idealized as two‐dimensional, and the governing equations are taken to be those of a circular arch. The arch is assumed to be clamped and to vibrate in its own plane; both flexural and extensional effects are included in the formulation. The fluid is assumed to be linearly compressible and to undergo small‐amplitude irrotational motion. A new Green's function is presented for the fluid domain based on an eigenfunction expansion technique and is used in conjunction with a previously derived Green's function for the arch to solve the coupled fluid‐structure interaction problem. Numerical examples are presented that illustrate the influence of the direction and frequency of ground excitation and the various geometric and material properties on the hydrodynamic pressure distribution on the arch and its associated dynamic response.