ABSTRACT
As the 1999 Chi-chi earthquake and the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake damaged many important structures due to surface rupture as well as strong motions, displacement and inclination of ground surface have become the significant issues in engineering. Most analytical methods do not evaluate displacement and strong motions at the same time. In this study, the authors conducted fault rupture simulation using three dimensional finite element method (3D-FEM) for the 2014 Northern Nagano Earthquake caused by the Kamishiro Fault, and confirmed the applicability of numerical method and conditions, such as spring stiffness of joint elements, FEM mesh size of a fault plane and the constitutive relation during stress drop, by comparing results with the observed ground motions and displacement. The computational results confirmed that the displacement and strong motion can be evaluated simultaneously using appropriate constitutive parameters and fine FEM mesh with a size less than 150 m.
