Surface motion of multiple alluvial valleys for incident plane SH-waves by using a semi-analytical approach

In this paper, the degenerate kernels and Fourier series expansions are adopted in the null-field integral equation to solve the exterior Helmholtz problems with alluvial valleys. The main gain of using degenerate kernels in integral equations is free of calculating the principal values for singular integrals by locating the null-field point exactly on the real boundary. An adaptive observer system is addressed to fully employ the property of degenerate kernels for circular boundaries in the polar coordinate. Image concept and technique of decomposition are utilized for half-plane problems. After moving the null-field point to the real boundary and matching the boundary conditions, a linear algebraic system is obtained without boundary discretization. The unknown coefficients in the algebraic system can be easily determined. The present method is treated as a “semi-analytical” solution since error only attributes to the truncation of Fourier series. Earthquake analysis for the site response of alluvial valley or canyon subject to the incident SH-wave is the main concern. Numerical examples including single and successive alluvial valleys are given to test our program. Limiting cases of a single canyon and two successive canyons are also addressed. Amplification of soft basin is also observed in this study. The validity of the semi-analytical method is verified. Our advantages, well-posed model, principal value free, elimination of boundary-layer effect and exponential convergence and mesh-free, by using the present method are achieved.