Earthquake risk analysis of lifeline structure for alluvial and liquefaction susceptible soil: Adapazari case

Turkey is located one of the very active fault zone in the world. Due to the fact that in Turkey, risk evaluation projects are required to be prepared for urban areas in order to minimize the earthquake affects. The number of evaluation projects that we have in our country is very limited. There is a great need for such projects by considering the current local area properties, local architectural plans and structural systems. Construction of buried pipelines especially earthquake prone areas require very special considerations. Buried pipelines serving as utilities or lifelines in a city must be stable during an earthquake and must comply with the design codes in use.Recent earthquakes such as at 1994 Northridge, USA, 1995 Kobe, Japan and 17 August 1999 Kocaeli, Turkey earthquakes resulted in extensive damage to lifelines systems. The widespread distribution provided a unique opportunity to determine the geographic variability of the damage and the relationship between damage, transient motion and permanent ground deformation.Buried pipelines are constructed wide areas due to their service utilities, and therefore they are affected by earthquake shaking and local site conditions. In Turkey, most pipelines pass through earthquake prone areas. Hence, buried pipelines safety must be considered in terms of dynamic loads such as earthquake.In this study, buried pipelines safety were investigated considering as soil liquefaction, peak ground acceleration and soil deformations. This research gives opportunity for local and governmental organizations to consider reevaluation of safety measures if it is necessary.