Influence of site amplification of seismic ground motions on forces in building structures

1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 964-973
Author(s):  
A. C. Heidebrecht ◽  
P. Henderson ◽  
N. Naumoski ◽  
J. W. Pappin

The results for nine sites with different characteristics subjected to earthquakes of varying intensity and frequency content are presented in the form of base shear coefficients, base shear coefficient ratios (surface to rock), and foundation factors. They indicate that large amplifications can be expected at structural periods close to the site periods, especially for low intensity excitation. Comparisons are made with the provisions of the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) 1990. They show that, depending on the site and the nature and level of the excitation, the expected base shear can be well in excess of the values specified by the NBCC. Key words: seismic, design, code, soil, site, response, amplification, base, shear.

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 655-662
Author(s):  
George K. Georgoussis

Building structures of low or medium height are usually designed with a pseudostatic approach using a base shear much lower than that predicted from an elastic spectrum. Given this shear force, the objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of the element strength assignment (as determined by several building codes) on the torsional response of inelastic single-storey eccentric structures and to provide guidelines for minimizing this structural behaviour. It is demonstrated that the expected torque about the centre of mass (CM) may be, with equal probability, positive (counterclockwise) or negative (clockwise). This result means that the torsional strength should also be provided in equal terms in both rotational directions, and therefore the base shear and torque (BST) surface of a given system must be symmetrical (or approximately symmetrical). In stiffness-eccentric systems, appropriate BST surfaces may be obtained when a structural design is based on a pair of design eccentricities in a symmetrical order about CM, and this is shown in representative single-storey building models under characteristic ground motions.


2001 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 235-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHIN-HSIUNG LOH ◽  
SHIUAN WAN ◽  
YI-WEN CHANG

This paper examines the dynamic behavior of a highway RC-bridge subjected to both near-fault and far-field ground motions. The bridge consists of a hinge supported continuous girder with six concrete piers and the bridge is designed according to the Taiwan seismic design code. To investigate the hysteretic behavior of the bridge piers, cyclic loading tests were carried out at the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE). The Chi-Chi earthquake ground motion record was adopted as the near-fault earthquake characteristics whereas another earthquake record was selected for the far-field earthquake characteristics. The ductility demands and base shear demands due to the near-fault and the far-field earthquake ground motions are compared and conclusions drawn from the study. The stipulation of code limitations and the present calculated demands are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (4) ◽  
pp. 1530-1548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace A. Parker ◽  
Annemarie S. Baltay ◽  
John Rekoske ◽  
Eric M. Thompson

ABSTRACT We use a large instrumental dataset from the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence (Rekoske et al., 2019, 2020) to examine repeatable source-, path-, and site-specific ground motions. A mixed-effects analysis is used to partition total residuals relative to the Boore et al. (2014; hereafter, BSSA14) ground-motion model. We calculate the Arias intensity stress drop for the earthquakes and find strong correlation with our event terms, indicating that they are consistent with source processes. We look for physically meaningful trends in the partitioned residuals and test the ability of BSSA14 to capture the behavior we observe in the data. We find that BSSA14 is a good match to the median observations for M>4. However, we find bias for individual events, especially those with small magnitude and hypocentral depth≥7  km, for which peak ground acceleration is underpredicted by a factor of 2.5. Although the site amplification term captures the median site response when all sites are considered together, it does not capture variations at individual stations across a range of site conditions. We find strong basin amplification in the Los Angeles, Ventura, and San Gabriel basins. We find weak amplification in the San Bernardino basin, which is contrary to simulation-based findings showing a channeling effect from an event with a north–south azimuth. This and an additional set of ground motions from earthquakes southwest of Los Angeles suggest that there is an azimuth-dependent southern California basin response related to the orientation of regional structures when ground motion from waves traveling south–north are compared with those in the east–west direction. These findings exhibit the power of large, spatially dense ground-motion datasets and make clear that nonergodic models are a way to reduce bias and uncertainty in ground-motion estimation for applications like the U.S. Geological Survey National Seismic Hazard Model and the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning System.


1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 945-953
Author(s):  
A. M. Chandler

This paper evaluates the earthquake-resistant design provisions of the 1990 edition of the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC 1990) for asymmetric building structures subjected to combined lateral shear and torsional dynamic loadings arising from earthquake base excitation. A detailed parametric study is presented, evaluating the dynamic edge displacement response in the elastic range, for the side of the building which is adversely affected by lateral–torsional coupling. A series of buildings is studied, with realistic ranges of the fundamental natural period, structural eccentricity, and uncoupled frequency ratio. These buildings are evaluated under base loadings arising from a total of 45 strong motion records taken from earthquakes in North America, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East, and Southern Pacific, categorized according to site soil conditions and the ratio a/v of peak ground acceleration to velocity. The latter parameter together with the uncoupled lateral period are found to influence strongly the combined dynamic edge response, with the greatest forces on edge members arising from earthquakes with high a/v ratio in structures with natural periods below 0.8 s. In this case the NBCC 1990 loading provisions significantly underestimate the elastic dynamic response. For buildings with periods longer than 0.8 s, the conservatism of the base shear provisions leads to overestimation of combined dynamic edge response in asymmetric systems, and this is also true in the short-period range for buildings subjected to ground motions with low a/v ratio. The NBCC 1990 provisions are reasonably conservative for short-period systems subjected to ground motions with intermediate a/v ratio. Key words: earthquakes, seismic, design, response, spectra, base, shear, torsional, provisions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (07) ◽  
pp. 1750074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kinzang Thinley ◽  
Hong Hao ◽  
Choki Tashi

Inspite of its location in one of the most active seismic zones in the world, Bhutan has no seismic design code of its own and no detailed study on the performance of buildings under expected earthquake ground excitation has been carried out. In this study, probabilistic seismic hazard analysis is first carried out to predict the design ground motions in Thimphu, Bhutan for the return periods (RPs) of 475 and 2475 years. These ground motions are then used to assess the performance of three typical RC buildings in the capital city, Thimphu. Soil–structure interaction (SSI) is incorporated at different soil sites and the effects of SSI are discussed. Adequacy of using Indian Seismic Code in Bhutan is also studied and discussed. The study suggests that the typical buildings in Bhutan could undergo moderate to severe damages under the 475 year RP and could even collapse under the 2475 year RP ground motions. This study is the first such effort in predicting the design ground motions and then assessing the performance of the general building stocks in Bhutan. The result can guide the seismic preparedness of the country through proper design and mitigation measures.


Author(s):  
Ruibin Hou ◽  
John X. Zhao

ABSTRACT This article presents a nonlinear site amplification model for ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs), using site period as site-effect proxy based on the measured shear-wave velocity profiles of selected KiK-net and K-NET sites in Japan. This model was derived using 1D equivalent-linear site-response analysis for a total of 516 measured soil-site shear-wave velocity profiles subjected to a total of 912 components of rock-site records. The modulus reduction and damping curves for each soil layer were assigned based on the soil-type description for a particular layer. The site period and site impedance ratio affect both the linear and nonlinear parts of this study, and were used as the site parameters in the 1D amplification model. A large impedance ratio enhances the amplification ratios when the site responds elastically and enhances the nonlinear response when the site develops a significant nonlinear response. The effects of moment magnitude and source distance on the linear part of the 1D amplification model were also incorporated in the model. To implement the 1D amplification model into GMPEs, a model adjustment is required to match the GMPE amplification ratio at weak motion and to retain the nonlinear amplification ratio at the strong motion of the 1D model. The two-step adjustment method by Zhao, Hu, et al. (2015) was adopted in this study with significant modifications. It is not possible to obtain a credible second-step adjustment parameter using the GMPEs dataset only. We proposed three methods for calculating the scale factors. Method 1 is a constant angle in a 30°–60° range for all spectral periods; method 2 was based on the GMPE dataset and 1-D model parameters; and method 3 was based on the strong-motion records used for the 1D site modeling. A simple second-step adjustment factor leads to smoothing amplification ratios and soil-site spectrum.


1990 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Henderson ◽  
A. C. Heidebrecht ◽  
N. Naumoski ◽  
J. W. Pappin

Results are presented for 4 sand sites forming part of a site response study of 11 soil sites. The results are in the form of spectral accelerations and ratios, base shear coefficients, and foundation factors. They indicate that significant amplifications can be expected at sand sites, especially for low-intensity excitation. Comparisons are made with the provisions of the proposed National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) 1990. They show that, depending on the site and the nature and level of the excitation, the expected base shears can be well in excess of the values specified by the NBCC. Key words: seismic, design, sand, soil, site, response, spectra, amplification, base, shear.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 441-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Braganza ◽  
Gail M. Atkinson

Site amplification effects in southern Ontario are highly variable and strongly influence felt effects and damage potential. Site parameters such as shear-wave velocity in the top 30 metres of soil (VS30), traditionally used to estimate site amplification, are not well known in this region. Thus, regional maps of shaking potential and seismic hazard are often overgeneralized. In this study, a site amplification model based on peak frequency (fpeak) is compared to one based on VS30, as given by the 2015 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC). Earthquakes and scenario events are used to estimate ground motions and shaking intensities. It is shown that both models generally predict similar felt intensities but show significant differences in their predicted amplification of ground motions as a function of frequency. The results of this study support the use of fpeak as a site response variable for estimating amplification effects in southern Ontario.


1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 974-984 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamel Elhmadi ◽  
Arthur C. Heidebrecht

Results of a parametric study on site response effects due to seismic strong ground motions are used in this paper to develop a new "dynamic foundation factor" for the National Building Code of Canada. In order to capture the effect of the site resonance, the proposed dynamic foundation factor, F*, is given as a function of the ratio between the fundamental period of the building and the site period, T/Ts (i.e., F* spectra in terms of T/Ts). The parametric study results suggested that the proposed F* spectra be dependent on four different classes of soil deposits. These classes are deep cohesive (class 1), deep cohesionless (class 2), shallow cohesive and cohesionless (class 3), and dense sand (class 4). For classes 1 and 2, the F* spectra are independent of the ratio of peak acceleration to peak velocity, av, of the seismic ground motion. For classes 3 and 4, however, the F* spectra are an increasing function of the ratio a/v. A scaling multiplier is introduced to take into account the influence of level of intensity, v. The proposed dynamic foundation factor is compared with the National Building Code of Canada 1990 foundation factor. Finally, actual sites are used to check the validity and consistency of the proposed dynamic foundation factor. Key words: seismic, foundation factor, soil, site, amplification, building, shear, force, period, spectra.


Author(s):  
Brendon A. Bradley ◽  
Liam M. Wotherspoon ◽  
Anna E. Kaiser

This paper presents ground motion and site effect observations in the greater Wellington region from the 14 November 2016 Mw7.8 Kaikōura earthquake. The region was the principal urban area to be affected by the earthquake-induced ground motions from this event. Despite being approximately 60km from the northern extent of the causative earthquake rupture, the ground motions in Wellington exhibited long period (specifically T = 1 - 3s) ground motion amplitudes that were similar to, and in some locations exceeded, the current 500 year return period design ground motion levels. Several ground motion observations on rock provide significant constraint to understand the role of surficial site effects in the recorded ground motions. The largest long period ground motions were observed in the Thorndon and Te Aro basins in Wellington City, inferred as a result of 1D impedance contrasts and also basin-edge-generated waves. Observed site amplifications, based on response spectral ratios with reference rock sites, are seen to significantly exceed the site class factors in NZS1170.5:2004 for site class C, D, and E sites at approximately T=0.3-3.0s. The 5-95% Significant Duration, Ds595, of ground motions was on the order of 30 seconds, consistent with empirical models for this earthquake magnitude and source-to-site distance. Such durations are slightly longer than the corresponding Ds595 = 10s and 25s in central Christchurch during the 22 February 2011 Mw6.2 and 4 September 2010 Mw7.1 earthquakes, but significantly shorter than what might be expected for large subduction zone earthquakes that pose a hazard to the region. In summary, the observations highlight the need to better understand and quantify basin and near-surface site response effects through more comprehensive models, and better account for such effects through site amplification factors in design standards.


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