SAFETY AND SERVICEABILITY EVALUATION OF INFRASTRUCTURES SUBJECTED TO FROSTQUAKES: TREMORS COMMENCED AT NORTHERN AMERICA ON JANUARY 3, 2014

摘要

Freezing unrest, indicative of water frost and pressure increases within soil and rocks, often precedes earth tremors.This intriguing form of tremor is called frostquakes (or cryoseisms).The frostquakes share similar felt effects of earthquakes.On January 3, 2014,Loud booms commenced across Toronto at Northern America, from Rexdale, Belleville,Schomberg, Richmond Hill, Newmarket, to Kleinburg, Stouffville, Ajax, Oshawa, Brampton and Orangeville.Residents across Toronto are reported being awoken by extremely loud booms, like presage of large destructive earthquakes.This causes worries and even frights of frostquakes.Thus, to evaluate the substantial damage that frostquakes may bring to civil infrastructures, this paper introduces a prediction model to study the implications of this tremor mechanism and the damage it may bring.A typical civil structure, a common 10-story RC building structure, is adopted as the case study.It can be predicted that the highest intensity of frostquakes will not exceed VI Modified Mercalli (MM) intensity.It is concluded that, though cracks within 0.3 mm in width may occur in some RC structures during frostquakes, no permanent damage which may decreases the safety or serviceability performance of structures would be brought to typical civil infrastructures.