Earthquake Induced Displacements of Sliding Blocks

A method is presented for evaluating the earthquake‐induced permanent displacements for sliding blocks. Given the distributions of the limiting accelerations and the ground motion parameters, this method will give the probability distribution of the permanent displacements. The mechanism by which the permanent displacements are induced in a step‐wise fashion is incorporated. In addition, an equivalent stationary motion model is employed for ground accelerations. To facilitate general applications, conditional distributions for permanent displacements are also given based upon site soil conditions. A numerical example is also worked out in detail.