Influence of the Sedimentary Cover in the Cologne Area on the Shape of Response Spectra

For the greater area of the city of Cologne a microzonation from an earthquake engineering perspective was introduced. The area has been divided into eight subregions with approximately uniform soil profile. For all regions the influence of the sediments on simulated earthquakes has been investigated by three well known methods: 2-layer solution, SHAKE 91, HASKELL matrix algorithm. The transfer functions and response spectra were computed and compared to the elastic acceleration response spectra of the German building code E-DIN 4149. Two different methods for the generation of synthetic accelerograms and the three wave propagation analysis procedures have been compared and a series of issues relevant to the practical application of them were discussed.