Vertical ground Motions and Its effect on Engineering Structures:

A state-of-the-art review
Bipin Shrestha

Abstract:

During the recent earthquakes, the vertical component of the ground motion found to be exceeding the horizontal component,
which directly contradicts the current codal provision that assumes the value of the vertical ground motion to be 1/2 to 2/3 of the
horizontal component. After almost every destructive earthquake some engineers postulates that the structural damage was due to
strong vertical ground motion. Therefore, seismic design of the structure without the consideration of the vertical ground motion
component may result in unquantifiable risk from the collapse, especially those constructed in the close proximity of the fault.
However there seems to be no consensus as to the importance on damage due to vertical motions, and little that has been learned
from the recent earthquake in Loma-Prieta, Northridge, or Kobe which indicates conclusively that damage to structures was
predominantly by vertical motions. This paper presents the assemblage of the state of art study on the vertical ground motion and
its effects on the engineering structures.

Keywords: vertical ground motion, Spectral ratio, Fourier spectra, vertical response period, shear response

1. Introduction
It is a well Known fact that the civil engineering
structures are subjected to the three dimensional
earthquake ground motions. But it is only the
horizontal motion which has been extensively
studied and considered in the design Process
whereas the vertical component of the ground
motion has generally been neglected in design and
hardly studied from hazard point of view. Also most
of the Prevailing building codes including NBC 105,
IS 1893, UBC 97 and many other codes worldwide
assume the vertical component of the ground motion
to be ½ to ⅔ of the horizontal component. However,
in recent destructive earthquakes such as the 1989
Loma Prieta, 1994 Northridge, 1995 Kobe and 1999
Chi-Chi, it was found that vertical ground motion
may equal or even significantly exceed the local
horizontal ground motion. In such situations, most
existing code specifications must be considered
unconservative.
In recent years many authors has highlighted this
fact and done significant researches to identify and
quantify the damaging potential of the vertical
component of ground motion. Many studies reported
data showing that the vertical peak acceleration may
be even higher than the horizontal value. Others
have attributed the observed failure on the
Reinforced concrete structures to the reduction of
shear strength caused by vertical ground motion
effects. Similar findings on the eroded shear
capacity of columns due to vertical excitation
influences were also highlighted. As recently shown
by Kunnath et al. (2008), vertical motion may
magnify and potentially create reversal of bending
moment in longitudinal bridge girders. Widespread
phenomenon of bearing failure and deck unseating,
as observed during the recent earthquakes, was
partially attributed to the destructive impact of
vertical motions. However effects on vertical
acceleration on response of the long span cable
stayed bridge and its steel tower was found to be
slight (Shrestha, 2009; Abdel raheem, Hayashikawa
and Aly, 2002). Based on a large body of available
studies, it is possible to conclude that vertical
shaking may escalate the axial column force, cause
an increase in the moment and shear demand, and
amplify plastic deformation, extend plastic hinge
formation and finally diminish the ductility capacity
of structural component. In order to include the
vertical motion effects in design, recent efforts have
considered the development of vertical ground
motion spectra by focusing mostly on near-fault
accelerograms (e.g.;Elnashai and Papazoglou, 1997;
Kalkan and Gülkan, 2004). These studies have
developed vertical ground motion spectra and
concentrated on its parallel use with the horizontal
ground motion spectra. In some existing building
codes, Eurocode 8 for example, much more
attention is given to the uncertainties of the ratio of 2/3 as originally proposed by Newmark et
spectrum ratio in the near-fault zone. al. (1973). As a result, all components of motion
have the same frequency content in almost all
design codes. The frequency content, however, is
2. Vertical component of Ground motion demonstrably different (figure 2). Also, the 2/3 rule
and V/H ratio for V/H is unconservative in the near-field and over-
A common perception among the Professional conservative at large epicentral distances. Table1.
engineer is that the vertical component of the shows some of the landmark earthquakes with
ground motion is lower than the horizontal significant V/H ratio. The V/H ratio was confirmed
component, thereby V/H ratio (ratio of vertical to to be > 1.0 within a 5 km radius of earthquake
horizontal peak ground acceleration) is assumed to source, > 2/3 within 25 km radius and dependent on
remain less than the unity. Many codes suggest earthquake magnitude from studies by Collier and
scaling of a single spectral shape, originally derived Elnashai(2001).
for the horizontal component using an average V/H
Event Station(Mw) Hor1(g) Hor2(g) Ver(g) V/H
Gazli, Karakyr(6.8) 0.71 0.63 1.34 1.89
Uzbeksitan 1976
Imperial valley, El cenro array 6 (6.5) 0.41 0.44 1.66 3.77
USA 1979
Nahhani, Canada Site1(6.8) 0.98 1.10 2.09 1.90
1985
Morgan hill, Gilroy array#7(6.2) 0.11 0.19 0.43 2.25
USA 1984
Loma-prieta, LGPC(6.9) 0.56 0.61 0.89 1.47
USA 1989
Northridge, USA Arleta fire station(6.7) 0.34 0.31 0.55 1.61
1994
Kobe, Japan Port Island (6.9) 0.31 0.28 0.56 1.79
1995
Chi Chi, Taiwan TCU 076 (6.3) 0.11 0.12 0.26 2.07
1999
Table 1 Ground motion database

3. Frequency Content
The vertical component of the ground motion is
associated with vertically propagating P-waves,
whereas the horizontal components are is more
associated with S-waves. The wave-length of P-
waves are shorter than the S-wave, i.e. frequency
content of the vertical component of the ground
motion is higher than the horizontal component. The
figure 1 show horizontal and vertical component of
the most frequently quoted ground motion of 1940
el-centro earthquake. Figure 2 and 3 shows Fourier
spectra, acceleration response spectrum and Arias
intensity curve. This figure confirms the higher
frequency content of the vertical component of the
ground motion thus result in higher ratio of vertical
to horizontal spectral acceleration at the short period
range. Although the content over the frequency
range of the vertical ground motion is lower than
that of the horizontal component, it has tendency to
concentrate all its energy in narrow high frequency
band. Therefore such high frequency content leads
to largest response in short period range, which
often coincides with the vertical period of the RC
structure, thus causing significant response
amplification.
 0.3
0.2
Acceleration [g]

0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Time [sec]

0.3
0.2
Acceleration [g]

0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Time [sec]

1. a. Ground motion timehistory of El-centro 1940 vertical(0.21g) and horizontal(0.32g) respectively from
top

1. b. Comparison of Fourier spectra and Arias intensity of vertical and horizontal ground motion

1. c. Response spectrum and comparison of spectral ratio at short period for El-centro with code value
 4. Time lag between peak vertical
and peak horizontal motion:
One of the important features of the ground motion
is the relationship between the arrival times of peak
vertical motion with the peak horizontal motion. In
general peak vertical ground motion occurs earlier
than peak horizontal motion as shown in figure 1
(Peak vertical acceleration occurs 1 sec earlier than
the peak horizontal ground motion), whereas in
other cases the near coincidence occurs in the time
domain. In case of peak vertical motion occurring
significantly before the peak horizontal motion, then
it may be valid to design the structure separately for
the effects of vertical and horizontal ground motion
but when these two components are nearly
coinciding then the consideration of combined effect
in the design in necessary. Elnashai and Collier
(2001) investigated the time interval by using
records from Imperial Valley (1979) and Morgan
Hill (1984) earthquakes. They considered 32 records
at various distance with similar site conditions. The
study concluded that the time interval increases with
distance from source and should be taken as zero for
a distance of 5 km from the source. However the
wide variety of ground motion exhibit diverse result
thus concluding the local site effect, travel path and
source depth as other significant contributors to the
arrival time of peak of two components.

4. Vertical Response period:

It is quite clear from the figure 3 that the vertical to Number of

horizontal spectral ratio significantly exceeds the Horizontal Vertical
floors period (s) period (s)
code recommended one at initial period (in the case
of El-centro ground motion it was for 0.05- 0.15 1 0.1 0.040
2 0.2 0.064
seconds) and codal provision is too conservative 3 0.3 0.082
for the later periods. Then the question in the mind 4 0..4 0.091
will be, does this higher spectral ratio at initial 5 05 0.099
6 0.6 0.106
period of the response spectra will have any effect 7 0.7 0.114
on structure? Yes, it does. The period of the RC 8 0.8 0.120
building does lies within this effective range Table 2: Fundamental natural period of RC
(0.05sec-0.15sec) according to finding from building (Papadopoulou)
Papadopoulou (1989).
 His finding suggest that the natural period of the
RC structure lies within the constant amplification
range for vertical strong-motion records which was
found to lie between periods of 0.05 s and 0.15 s .
This with the confirmed severity of near-field
vertical strong-motion in terms of peak ground
acceleration suggests that large dynamic axial
forces, acting both upwards and downwards,
should be expected in the near-field. Kim and
Elanshai (2008) performed the parametric study on
RC bridges (2spans and single pier) with different
geometric configuration. Fundamental period of
the bridge was calculated are listed on table 3,
which again clearly indicates for most of the cases
the fundamental period of vibration is near about
0.15sec.

Figure 3. Layout of Simple bridge(Kim and Elnashai)

Table 3; Geometric configuration and fundamental period of the bridges (Kim and Elnashai)

It is stressed again that the most worrying aspect of vertical strong ground motion leads to the
vertical response is the correspondence of building significant amplification of forces particularly on
frame and short span bridge periods with the vertical load carrying members.
predominant periods of vertical strong-motion
records. This correspondence of fundamental period
of the structure with the Predominant periods of
 5. Effect on Building structures
The major effect of the vertical ground motion on
the building is to increase the axial demand on the
vertical load carrying member. It is observed that
the axial force caused by the vertical motion,
having comparable amplitude to the horizontal
motion, are larger than the corresponding
transverse loading only in most of the cases. This
pattern is significant for upper floor rather than for
lower floors. Nonlinear dynamic analysis of an 8-
Table 4 Effect of vertical motion on column compressive forces for a RC frame (Koulkeri)
It is a well known fact that the shear capacity of the
column depends upon the axial demand. An increase
in the axial force demand in the column such as the
one imposed by the vertical components with
significant amplitude results in an increase in the
shear capacity of the column. This is beneficial to
the seismic behavior of the column. However, a
storey, 3-bay moment resisting RC frame designed
according to UBC, has lead to the confirmation of
the occurrence of net tensile forces and
displacements, thus dispelling the question of high
frequency excitation often used to support the
insignificance of the vertical component(Koukleri).
The results for the Imperial Valley Centro-6
motion are shown in Table 4.
decrease in the axial force demand on the column
results in a decrease in the shear capacity of the
column. Vertical ground motion can put a column
into tension for short durations of time, thus
reducing the column’s shear capacity to just the
shear strength of the transverse reinforcement. This
may lead to the failure of the structure.
 Figure 6 Effect of vertical motion on shear response of RC columns. Shear capacity Vs demand time history of
critical 7th storey column of dual frame at attainment of 3 percent inter-storey drift to ground motion of 1971 San
Fernando (Georgantzis)

Similar results were also observed for steel
frame buildings during study undertaken by
Broderick et al. following the report of damaged
steel building during Northridge earthquake.
Although vertical ground motion didn’t
significantly influenced the transverse response of
the building, significant increase in column
rotational ductility demand was found and
attributed to occurrence of lower yield point.
Beams of the steel frames were found to be more
affected by the vertical motion. Problem was more
concentrated particularly at the connections where
the amplitude of the obtained vibrations was such
as to imply the imposition of a large number of
cycles close to and exceeding yield. More than 100
cycles were counted in certain cases, enough for
low-cycle fatigue to become significant and cyclic
deterioration to occur in typical connection
elements. Such response only takes place if the
vertical component is included in the analysis.

6. Effect on Bridge Structure

One of the early studies on the effect of vertical
component of the ground motion was carried out by
saadeghvaziri and Foutch (1991), whom reported
the variation on the axial force due to the vertical
motion, reduced the energy dissipation capacity of
the bridge column and also affected the shear
capacity of the column. This finding was further
supported by the Papazoglou and Elanshai (1996)
on their paper which included both the field
evidence and the damaging effect of the vertical
motion on the building and highway structure as
well. Recently, Kunnath et al. (2008) examined a
two-span highway bridge with double-column bent
considering six different structural configurations.
They found that the vertical component of ground
motion causes significant amplification in the axial
force demand in the columns and moment demands
in the girder at both the mid-span and at the face of
the bent cap. The increase in girder moment due to capacity, hence failure would be expected.
vertical motion caused the demand to exceed the

Figure 7 Time history response of selected parameter under horizontal and combined horizontal and
vertical ground motion (Kunnath, Abrahamson, Chai, Erduran and Yilmaz 2008)

7. Concluding Remarks

This paper is meant to disseminate the state-of-
the-art works on the importance of vertical
ground motion to the Nepali audience. The
author particularly likes to raise these concerns
at moment when National building code of the
Nepal is in the verge of revision. From the
collection of works worldwide, it is concluded
that neglecting vertical component of the
ground motion may lead to serious
underestimation of the demand, over-estimation
of the capacity and thus jeopardize overall
structural safety.
At this sensitive period of transition the author
from his capacity, as a keen student of the
vertical motion and its effects on the structure
likes to make few recommendations to the
reviewer of the codes. The present codal
provision on the vertical components of ground
motion is not conservative and often this codal
provision itself is not implemented during the
design and analysis of earthquake resistant
structure. Hence the author highly recommends
the reviewer of the code to go through
Eurocode-8, which has most satisfactorily dealt
the vertical spectrum, among the prevailing
seismic codes. Also the author would like to
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