PGA distributions and seismic hazard evaluations in three cities in Taiwan

This study first presents the series of peak ground acceleration (PGA) in the three major cities in Taiwan. The PGAs are back-calculated from an earthquake catalog with the use of ground motion models. The maximums of the 84th percentile (mean?+?one standard deviation) PGA since 1900 are 1.03, 0.36, and 0.10?g, in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung, respectively. Statistical goodness-of-fit testing shows that the series of PGA follow a double-lognormal distribution. Using the verified probability distribution, a probabilistic analysis was developed in this paper, and used to evaluate probability-based seismic hazard. Accordingly, given a PGA equal to 0.5?g, the annual exceedance probabilities are 0.56, 0.46, and 0.23?% in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung, respectively; for PGA equal to 1.0?g, the probabilities become 0.18, 0.14, and 0.09?%. As a result, this analysis indicates the city in South Taiwan is associated with relatively lower seismic hazard, compared with those in Central and North Taiwan.     

A study of earthquake inter-occurrence times distribution models in Taiwan

Natural Hazards - Statistical studies on earthquake recurrence time probabilities have frequently been applied to seismic hazard analyses. In Taiwan, an instrumental catalog provides a good...     

Emergency shelter capacity estimation by earthquake damage analysis

Taiwan is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire and thus experiences many detectable earthquakes annually. The damage resulting from these earthquakes affects the government and local citizens financially and endangers lives. As the political and economic capital of Taiwan, Taipei has a high population density. Assessing the seismic effects in Taipei, therefore, is a crucial issue requiring immediate attention. In this study, Taiwan Earthquake Loss Estimation System (TELES) software for analyzing potential earthquakes was used to simulate earthquake events at potential faults in the Taipei area. The TELES analysis theory was used to analyze seismic events and to predict building damage and displacement of citizens in each Taipei administrative district. The analytical results are then compared with the capacity of temporary shelters currently planned by the government. Finally, our conclusions and recommendations are presented. Hopefully, the results of this study can provide a useful reference for relevant organizations when developing earthquake disaster prevention policies.     

Seismicity, seismotectonics and seismic hazard of Italy

A first generation of probabilistic seismic hazard maps of the Italian country are presented. They are based on seismogenic zoning deriving from a kinematic model of the structural tectonic units and on an earthquake catalogue with the foreshock and aftershock events filtered out. The following ground motion parameters have been investigated and mapped using attenuation equations based on strong-motion recordings of Italian earthquakes: peak ground acceleration and velocity; Arias intensity; strong motion duration; and the pseudovelocity and pseudoacceleration spectral values at 14 fixed frequencies both for the vertical and the largest horizontal component. A Poissonian model of earthquake occurrence is assumed as a default and the hazard maps are presented in terms of ground motion values expected to be exceeded at a 10% probability level in 50 years (return period 475 years) according to the requirement of Eurocode 8 for the seismic classification of national territories, as well as in terms of exceedance probabilities of selected ground motion values. Finally, as a tentative study, the use of hybrid methods (implementing both seismogenic zones and structures), renewal processes (including earthquake forecasting) and the influence of site effects (as the basis for the planning of earthquake scenarios) were explored.     

Neural network-based methodology for inter-arrival times of earthquakes

In this paper, an artificial neural network (ANN)?Cbased methodology is proposed to determine the probability of inter-arrival time (IAT) of main shock of six broad seismic regions of India. Initially, classical methodology using exponential distribution is applied to IAT of earthquake events computed from earthquake catalog data. From the goodness-of-fit test results, it has been found that exponential distribution is not adequate. In this paper, a more efficient ANN-based methodology is proposed, and two ANN models are developed to determine the probability of IAT of earthquake events for a specified region, specified magnitude range or magnitude greater than the specified value. The performance of ANN models developed is validated with number of examples and found to predict the probability with minimal error compared to exponential distribution model. The methodology developed can be applied to any other region with the database of the respective regions.     

Pushover and nonlinear time history analysis evaluation of a RC building collapsed during the Van (Turkey) earthquake on October 23, 2011

The nonlinear seismic behavior of a collapsed reinforced concrete (RC) residential building in the city of Van in Turkey is investigated by the static pushover and nonlinear time history analyses. The selected RC structure was designed according to the 1975 version of Turkish Earthquake Code (TEC-1975). The building had experienced heavy damage, and it was demolished in the Van earthquake on October 23, 2011. The 2007 version of Turkish Earthquake Code (TEC-2007) is considered for the assessing seismic performance evaluation of the selected RC building. The RC structure presents collapse performance level under the earthquake loads. Besides, the analytical solutions show that different performance levels for the sections are obtained from the pushover and nonlinear time history methods.     

Seismic Zoning of Croatia

The territory of Croatia and neighboring regions is divided into 17 seismic source zones, considering available seismological and geological data. On this basis, seismic hazard elements (seismicity rate, maximum magnitude, b-value, probabilities of exceedance and return periods for a predefined set of magnitudes) are computed using the maximum likelihood method appropriate for treating data-sets with variable completeness thresholds. The values of long term expected peak horizontal acceleration obtained by using a combination of the deterministic and the probabilistic procedure are the highest in the Dubrovnik zone, while the Zagreb zone has the highest earthquake hazard in the continental part of the country. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Non-Poisson probabilistic seismic hazard assessment

The development of the new seismic hazard map of metropolitan Tehran is based on probabilistic seismic hazard computation using the non-Poisson recurrence time model. For this model, two maps have been prepared to indicate the earthquake hazard of the region in the form of iso-acceleration contour lines. They display the non-Poisson probabilistic estimates of peak ground accelerations over bedrock for 10 and 63 % probability of exceedance in 50 years. To carry out the non-Poisson seismic hazard analysis, appropriate distributions of interoccurrence times of earthquakes were used for the seismotectonic provinces which the study region is located and then the renewal process was applied. In order to calculate the seismic hazard for different return periods in the probabilistic procedure, the study area encompassed by the 49.5–54.5°E longitudes and 34–37°N latitudes was divided into 0.1° intervals generating 1,350 grid points. PGA values for this region are estimated to be 0.30–0.32 and 0.16–0.17 g for 10 and 63 % probability of exceedance, respectively, in 50 years for bedrock condition.     

PSHA of Van province for performance assessment using spectrally matched strong ground motion records

Within the framework of the performance based earthquake engineering, site specific earthquake spectra for Van province has been obtained. It is noteworthy that, in probabilistic seismic hazard assessment, as a first stage data from geological studies and records from the instrumental period were compiled to make a seismic source characterization for the study region. The probabilistic seismic hazard curves were developed based on selected appropriate attenuation relationships, at rock sites, with a probability of exceedance 2, 10 and 50% in 50 yrs period. The obtained results are compared with the spectral responses proposed for seismic evaluation and retrofit of building structure in Turkish Earthquake Code (2007), section 7. The acceleration response spectrums obtained from probabilistic seismic hazard analysis are matched to adjust earthquake accelerograms recorded during the 2011 Van earthquakes by using SeismoMatch v2.0 software. The aim of this procedure is to obtain a set of reasonable earthquake input motions for the seismic evaluation of existing buildings.     

Overview of Taiwan Earthquake Loss Estimation System

The National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan started the HAZ-Taiwan project in 1998 to promote researches on seismic hazard analysis, structural damage assessment, and socio-economic loss estimation. The associated application software, “Taiwan Earthquake Loss Estimation System (TELES)”, integrates various inventory data and analysis modules to fulfill three objectives. First, it helps to obtain reliable estimates of seismic hazards and losses soon after occurrence of large earthquakes. Second, it helps to simulate earthquake scenarios and to provide useful estimates for local governments or public services to propose their seismic disaster mitigation plans. Third, it helps to provide catastrophic risk management tools, such as proposing the seismic insurance policy for residential buildings. This paper focuses on the development and application of analysis modules used in early loss estimation system. These modules include assessments of ground motion intensity, soil liquefaction potential, building damage and casualty.     

Comprehensive seismic hazard assessment of Tripura and Mizoram states

Northeast India is one of the most highly seismically active regions in the world with more than seven earthquakes on an average per year of magnitude 5.0 and above. Reliable seismic hazard assessment could provide the necessary design inputs for earthquake resistant design of structures in this region. In this study, deterministic as well as probabilistic methods have been attempted for seismic hazard assessment of Tripura and Mizoram states at bedrock level condition. An updated earthquake catalogue was collected from various national and international seismological agencies for the period from 1731 to 2011. The homogenization, declustering and data completeness analysis of events have been carried out before hazard evaluation. Seismicity parameters have been estimated using G–R relationship for each source zone. Based on the seismicity, tectonic features and fault rupture mechanism, this region was divided into six major subzones. Region specific correlations were used for magnitude conversion for homogenization of earthquake size. Ground motion equations (Atkinson and Boore 2003; Gupta 2010) were validated with the observed PGA (peak ground acceleration) values before use in the hazard evaluation. In this study, the hazard is estimated using linear sources, identified in and around the study area. Results are presented in the form of PGA using both DSHA (deterministic seismic hazard analysis) and PSHA (probabilistic seismic hazard analysis) with 2 and 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years, and spectral acceleration (T = 0. 2 s, 1.0 s) for both the states (2% probability of exceedance in 50 years). The results are important to provide inputs for planning risk reduction strategies, for developing risk acceptance criteria and financial analysis for possible damages in the study area with a comprehensive analysis and higher resolution hazard mapping.     

Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessment for Tulbagh,South Africa: Part I – Assessment of Seismic Hazard

In this part of our study the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) for Tulbagh was performed. The applied procedure is parametric and consists essentially of two steps. The first step is applicable to the area in the vicinity of Tulbagh and requires an estimation of the area-specific parameters, which, in this case, is the mean seismic activity rate, , the Gutenberg-Richter parameter, b, and the maximum regional magnitude, m_max. The second step is applicable to the Tulbagh site, and consists of parameters of distribution of amplitude of the selected ground motion parameter. The current application of the procedure provides an assessment of the PSHA in terms of peak ground acceleration (PGA) and spectral acceleration (SA). The procedure permits the combination of both historical and instrumental data. The historical part of the catalogue only contains the strongest events, whereas the complete part can be divided into several subcatalogues, each assumed complete above a specified threshold of magnitude. In the analysis, the uncertainty in the determination of the earthquake was taken into account by incorporation of the concept of `apparent magnitude'. The PSHA technique has been developed specifically for the estimation of seismic hazard at individual sites without the subjective judgement involved in the definition of seismic source zones, when the specific active faults have not been mapped or identified, and where the causes of seismicity are not well understood. The results of the hazard assessment are expressed as probabilities that specified values of PGA will be exceeded during the chosen time intervals, and similarly for the spectral accelerations. A worst case scenario sketches the possibility of a maximum PGA of 0.30g. The results of the hazard assessment can be used as input to a seismic risk assessment.     

Improved performance-based seismic coefficient for gravity-type quay walls based on centrifuge test results

Verifying the seismic performance of port structures when the force balance limit is exceeded is important for the performance-based seismic design of gravity-type quay walls. Over the last three decades, performance verification methods have been developed that consider the effects of the design earthquake motion, geotechnical conditions, and structural details on the deformation of a quay wall to accurately predict earthquake-induced damage. In this study, representative performance verification methods (i.e., simplified dynamic analysis methods extending from the Newmark sliding block method and performance-based seismic coefficients developed in Japan) were quantitatively assessed with actual cases of earthquake-damaged quay walls and the results of dynamic centrifuge tests previously conducted under various conditions (i.e., different wall heights, earthquake motions and the thickness of subsoil). The dynamic centrifuge test results suggested directions for improving the performance-based seismic coefficients of the representative methods, while their field applicability and reliability were confirmed according to the actual earthquake records.

     

Implementation of integrated multi-channel analysis of surface waves and waveform inversion techniques for seismic hazard estimation

In this study, an integrated multi-channel analysis of Surface Waves (MASW) technique is applied to explore the geotechnical parameters of subsurface layers at the Zafarana wind farm. Moreover, a seismic hazard procedure based on the extended deterministic technique is used to estimate the seismic hazard load for the investigated area. The study area includes many active fault systems along the Gulf of Suez that cause many moderate and large earthquakes. Overall, the seismic activity of the area has recently become better understood following the use of new waveform inversion method and software to develop accurate focal mechanism solutions for recent recorded earthquakes around the studied area. These earthquakes resulted in major stress-drops in the Eastern desert and the Gulf of Suez area. These findings have helped to reshape the understanding of the seismotectonic environment of the Gulf of Suez area, which is a perplexing tectonic domain. Based on the collected new information and data, this study uses an extended deterministic approach to re-examine the seismic hazard for the Gulf of Suez region, particularly the wind turbine towers at Zafarana Wind Farm and its vicinity. Alternate seismic source and magnitude-frequency relationships were combined with various indigenous attenuation relationships, adapted within a logic tree formulation, to quantify and project the regional exposure on a set of hazard maps. We select two desired exceedance probabilities (10 and 20 %) that any of the applied scenarios may exceed the largest median ground acceleration. The ground motion was calculated at 50th, 84th percentile levels for both selected probabilities of exceeding the median.     

Earthquake recurrence assessment of the active Shanchiao Fault in northern Taiwan

The Shanchiao Fault is an active normal fault located in the Taipei metropolis, northern Taiwan. Faulting activities have been observed from both the long-term geological data and the short-term GPS surface deformation along the fault. Particularly, with recent studies suggesting the potential of triggering an M_w 7.0-plus earthquake, the Shanchiao Fault is posing a direct seismic threat to the most important, densely populated Taipei metropolitan area in Taiwan. As a result, this study aims to evaluate the earthquake recurrence probability of the Shanchiao Fault, in an attempt to estimate the seismic hazard and help in decision-making for the Taiwan government. Given the capability of capturing the stochastic nature of tectonic stress accumulating, this study used the Brownian model to calculate the earthquake recurrence of the Shanchiao Fault. From the analysis, the recurrence probabilities of the Shanchiao Fault are determined at 8.3 and 17.4% for the next 50 and 100 years, respectively.     

Development of medium- and low-rise reinforced concrete building fragility curves based on Chi-Chi Earthquake data

In this paper, a grid-based cluster division procedure, in combination with a novel maximum likelihood estimate based on multinomial distribution, is proposed to derive fragility curves for medium- and low-rise reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in Taiwan. This new grid-based method generates higher-quality vulnerability data for reducing the dispersion of datasets than does the district-based method. The medium- and low-rise RC buildings are classified into six typologies according to both the number of floors and the design code, based on the complete building damage records collected after the 1999 Chi-Chi Earthquake in Taiwan. The results of the grid-based method show that the fragility curves are more stable and convergent than those from the district-based method. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method can reasonably be implemented for fragility analysis and can be used for assessing seismic risk in the future.     

Centrifuge modelling-based verification of response spectra design methods for some vulnerable structures

Residential RC framed structures suffered heavily during the 2001 Bhuj earthquake in Gujarat, India. These types of structures also saw severe damage in other earthquakes such as the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake in Turkey and 921 Ji-Ji earthquake in Taiwan. In this paper the seismic response of residential structures was investigated using physical modelling. Idealised soft storey and top heavy, two degrees of freedom (2DOF) portal frame structures were developed and tested on saturated and dry sand models at 25 g using the Schofield Centre 10-m Beam Centrifuge. It was possible to recreate observed field behaviour using these models. As observed in many of the recent earthquakes, soft storey structures were found to be particularly vulnerable to seismic loads. Elastic response spectra methods are often used in the design of simple portal frame structures. The seismic risk of these structures can be significantly increased due to modifications such as removal of a column or addition of heavy water tanks on the roof. The experimental data from the dynamic centrifuge tests on such soft storey or top-heavy models was used to evaluate the predictions obtained from the response spectra. Response spectra were able to predict seismic response during small to moderate intensity earthquakes, but became inaccurate during strong earthquakes and when soil structure interaction effects became important. Re-evaluation of seismic risk of such modified structures is required and time domain analyses suggested by building codes such as IBC, UBC or NEHRP may be more appropriate.     

考虑冻土效应的桥梁桩-土动力相互作用研究现状与展望

冻土和地震是我国西部高寒高烈度地区桥梁工程建设中主要面临的两大挑战。冻土区线路工程广泛采用桩基础桥梁, 土体冻结后会显著影响地震作用下桩-土动力相互作用过程, 给桩基础桥梁抗震分析带来困难。首先系统总结和分析了冻土对桥梁结构地震响应的影响、 桩-冻土相互作用效应及其计算模型等方面的研究现状, 进而对相关成果进行了科学分析。研究表明： 冻土的存在对桥梁结构地震反应的影响是显著的, 桩基础桥梁抗震设计中不考虑冻土效应是不合理的。目前还存在的问题包括： 冻土区桥梁结构地震反应的研究中, 未充分考虑冻土效应; 现有桩-土相互作用模型无法有效应用于冻土领域; 地震作用下桩-冻土体系相互作用机理及其破坏特征不明确。在此基础上, 提出了考虑冻土效应后桥梁桩-土动力相互作用为今后需要重点研究的方向。