Investigation the effect of dynamic loading on the deformation of ancient man-made underground spaces

The ancient underground cities are a collection of self-supporting spaces that have been manually excavated in the soil or rock in the past. Because these structures have a very high cultural value due to their age, the study of their stability under the influence of natural hazards, such as earthquakes, is very important. In this research, while introducing the underground city of Ouyi Nushabad located in the center of Iran as one of the largest man-made underground cities of the old world, the analysis of dynamic stability is performed. For this purpose, the dynamic stress-displacement analysis has been performed through numerical modeling using the finite element software PLAXIS. At this stage, by simulating the Khorgo earthquake as one of the large-scale earthquakes that occurred in Iran, with a magnitude of 6.9 on the Richter scale, dynamic analysis by time history method has been performed on three selected sections of underground spaces. This study shows that the maximum amount of horizontal and vertical dynamic displacement is 12.9 cm and 17.7 cm, respectively, which was obtained in section 2. The comparison of the results shows that by increasing the cross-sectional area of the excavation, especially the distance between the roof and the floor, in addition to increasing the amount of horizontal and vertical dynamic displacement, the obtained maximum acceleration is intensified compared to the mapping acceleration applied to the model floor. Therefore, preventive actions should be taken to stabilize the excavations in order to prevent damage caused by a possible earthquake.