Romanian Reports in Physics, Volume 55, Number 3, P.

322- 331, 2003

Seismic ground motion characteristics in the Bucharest area: sedimentary cover versus seismic source control
BOGDAN GRECU, MIHAELA POPA, MIRCEA RADULIAN National Institute for Earth Physics, P.O.BOX MG-2, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: bgrecu@infp.ro, mihaela@infp.ro, mircea@infp.ro

(Received July 15, 2003)

Abstract. It is crucial for the engineering-geological purposes to explore and properly understand the role of the shallow sedimentary cover on the seismic motion characteristics in Bucharest area in parallel with the Vrancea seismic source influence. The information of the thickness of the sedimentary cover was collected from borehole sites located within Bucharest area. The noise measurements and all the available accelerograms recorded in the city area for moderate-size and strong Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquakes are analyzed in correspondence with the sedimentary cover topography. The resonant period of oscillation, deduced from the sediment thickness and average shear-wave velocity, roughly correlates with the peaks in the H/V spectral ratios of ambient noise and earthquakes. On the other hand, the source seems to primarily control the style of motion. Thus, the moderate-size earthquakes cannot excite the resonant oscillation associated with the sedimentary cover (1-2 s). As our work shows, this is really important only for the largest shocks (Mw > 7). The analysis of the entire instrumental data set recorded up to now in Bucharest urban area and its neighborhood suggests a rather weak variability of the peak motion values and spectral amplitudes over the study area, in agreement with the relatively small variability of the local shallow structure. Key words: microzonation, sedimentary cover, Vrancea earthquakes, spectral ratios method, Bucharest

INTRODUCTION
Any microzonation study underlines the importance of the local geology effects on ground shaking characteristics, and mainly of the amplification factor associated with the soil sedimentary cover. These effects are of particular interest for the earthquake engineers, since if amplifications occur at frequencies close to the fundamental frequency of vibration of the buildings, then the damage will be greatly amplified as well. It is clear that the construction of realistic microzonation map for the city would require a reasonably detailed model of the surface geology and geotechnical characteristics of the area.

Seismic ground motion characteristics in the Bucharest area

323

The main purpose of the present study is to analyze how the sedimentary cover data correlates with the previous measurements of the ambient noise, instrumental data recorded by the analog strong motion instruments and the new instrumental data recorded by the digital accelerometers installed in Bucharest area within the German-Romanian collaborative programme CRC461 ([2]). Data recorded for more than 25 years are also re-interpreted in the view of the recent higher-quality observations and modeling. As suggested by previous results, the seismic source parameters seem to play an important role in controlling the peak ground motion characteristics.

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century.

The Bucharest metropolitan area is located in the Romanian Plain, along the Colentina and rest is the Vrancea seismogenic zone, localized in a

narrow focal volume at about 160 km epicentral distance from the city. The predominant seismic energy is restrained to the intermediate depth domain (60 200 km) where 2-3 large shocks (Mw > 7) are generated per

The strong motion instruments installed over city area are represented in Fig. 1. Since the first instrumental record, at INCERC station, in March 3, 1977, a number of 25 moderate-size and strong Vrancea events were recorded in this area (given in Table 1).

Fig.1.-Position map of the strong motion instruments in the Bucharest area. The circles corespond to the noise measurement sites, the triangles and squares corespond to the K2 and SMA-1 stations, respectively (modified after [1]).

324
Table 1. Earthquake data set

Bogdan Grecu et al.

Lat. No. Date Time (0N) 1 1977/03/04 19:21 45.77

Lon. (0E) 26.76

Depth Mw (km) 94 7.4 INC INC, MET, MLT, MTR, Stations

1986/08/30

21:28

45.52

26.49

131

7.1 OTP, PND DRS, INC, MET, MLT,

1990/05/30

10:40

45.83

26.89

90.9

6.9 MTR, PND, TIT

4 5 6 7

1990/05/31 18.11.1997 18.12.1997 30.12.1997

00:17 11:23 23:21 04:39

45.85 45.53 45.52 45.54

26.91 26.52 26.26 26.32

86.9 123 135.5 139

6.4 4.7 3.9 4.6

MET, MTR, BCU, BFG, BPF, INC BCU, INC BCU, BFG, INC, BCU, BGM, BMG, BOT,

19.01.1998

00:53

45.64

26.67

104.9

4.0 BPF,

31.01.1998

21:14

45.47

26.33

136.6

3.6

BCU, BGM, BFG, BGM, BMG, BOT,

10

13.03.1998

13:14

45.56

26.33

154.8

4.7 BPF, INC BCU, BFG, BGM, BMG,

11

31.03.1998

13:14

45.56

26.33

154.8

4.7 BOT, BPF, INC BCU, BOT, BPF,

12

14.04.1998

01:03

45.73

26.57

141.3

3.8

BFG, BGM, BOT, BPF, 13 27.07.1998 15:02 45.67 26.53 135.4 4.4 INC BFG, BGM, BMG, BOT, 14 22.03.1999 19:25 45.52 26.31 144.5 4.4 BPF, INC BFG, BGM, BMG, BOT, 15 28.04.1999 08:47 45.49 26.27 151.1 5.3 BPF, INC BFG, BGM, BMG, BOT, 16 29.04.1999 18:44 45.62 26.40 147.7 4.0 BPF, INC 17 25.05.1999 09:36 45.59 26.49 122.3 3.9 BGM

324

Seismic ground motion characteristics in the Bucharest area

325
BFG, INC

18

08.10.1999

17:22

45.55

26.35

138

4.6

BDL, BGM, BHM, BMG, 19 04.03.2001 15:38 45.51 26.24 154 4.8 BST, BVC 20 28.03.2001 22:07 45.77 26.53 121 4.3 BDL, BGM, BST, BVC BDL, BGM, BHM, BMG, 21 24.05.2001 17:34 45.63 26.42 143.7 4.9 BST, BTM, BVC BDL, BHM, BST, BTM, 22 20.07.2001 05:09 45.75 26.79 132.5 4.8 BVC 23 24 25 17.10.2001 16.03.2002 03.05.2002 13:01 22:39 18:32 45.6 45.55 45.58 26.56 26.46 26.33 86.6 142 162.3 4.2 4.3 4.6 BDL, BVC BGM, BST, BTM BGM, BHM, BTM

The frequency band controlling the ground motion caused by Vrancea earthquakes depends essentially on two factors: seismic source radiation and thickness and elastic parameters of the sedimentary layers. As previous studies showed, the fundamental period of resonance for the sedimentary cover in the range 1 to 2 s is emphasized in the ambient noise and earthquake measurements, as well, if the spectral ratio method ([7]) is applied [(1)]. This could be an argument to stress the role of the local structure effects in controlling the ground shaking peak parameters. On the contrary, the numerical simulations ([6], [9]) brought strong evidence in favor of a determinant role of the source effects. The present work integrates the whole information available in order to reach an answer as reliable as possible to this dilemma.

Ambient noise measurements

The fundamental periods corresponding to the sedimentary cover in Bucharest ar

 

layers) range between 1 and 2 s, with a clear shift towards higher periods from S to N, reflecting an increase of the sedimentary cover thickness from about 80 to 190 m ([5]). The ambient noise measurements can be used to evaluate the fundamental resonance period of the sedimentary cover by means of calculation spectral ratios of the horizontal and vertical components of the ground motion ([3], [4], [7]). Bonjer et al. (1999) applied the H/V method for the noise measurements carried out at 16 sites in the Bucharest area, located roughly along a NW-SE profile (circles in Fig. 1). In each site, the noise was recorded at 100 Hz sampling rate for at least 30 min. with a velocity transducer. Site position

326

Bogdan Grecu et al.

was chosen to be closed to the sites with precisely known thickness of the sedimentary cover that means sites where deep drillings (reaching the bedrock) were available.

        61173 60 ! #% ' )1212 3 24425 0 89 @9 A B5 7 A 5 &27 A9&5 7 A 5 C 8A &1D C range deduced from borehole data (1.0 " $ &( 0 &
The fundamental periods obtained by Bonjer et al. (1999) (1.0
0 0

increasing S-to-N trend, because the number of sites is too small and the resolution of the peak H/V spectral values is not enough high. The inspection of the correlation between the observed periods corresponding to the maxima in the H/V ratios and the fundamental resonance periods estimated from the borehole data is rather poor and not convincing. More ambient noise data with better coverage of the study area are required to obtain more reliable results.

3E +5 2E +5 2E +5 1E +5 5E +4 0 2E +5 1E +5 5E +4 0 2E +5 1E +5 5E +4 0 1 .6 E + 3 1 .2 E + 3 8E +2 4E +2 0 1E +4 8E +3 6E +3 4E +3 2E +3 0 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3

Measurements
04/03/1977 M = 7.5

of

the

ground

motion

induced

by

earthquakes

30/08/1986 M = 7.1

30/05/1990 M = 6.9

19/01/1998 M = 4.0

04/03/2001 M = 4.8

pe rio a da (s )

Fig.2.- Fourier spectra radial component for 5 Vrancea

earthquakes recorded at INC station.

326

Seismic ground motion characteristics in the Bucharest area

327
consider all the

We

available instrumental data recorded in Bucharest area for the Vrancea earthquakes (Table 1). First, it is interesting to compare the spectra obtained by a Fast Fourier algorithm for the acceleration recordings at a given site for earthquakes of different sizes. Regardless the selected site,

Fig.3-

Radial

components

for

Vrancea

this comparative inspection shows that the contribution of the

earthquakes recorded at INC station.

fundamental period range (1 -2 s) in the observed spectra is practically absent for all the events with magnitude below 7, even if it appears when computing H/V ratios. As an example, we represent in Fig. 2 the Fourier spectra for the horizontal components recorded at INC station for different magnitude earthquakes. The enhancement of the resonant frequency domain in the case of the largest shocks can be also noticed when looking to the shape of the time domain recording (Fig. 3). It seems that the resonant amplification by the sedimentary cover layer becomes effective only for the largest earthquakes (M > 7), when the spectral content radiated by the source coincides with the fundamental resonance range. Taking into consideration that, to a first approximation, the relation between the height of a building and its fundamental period of vibration is expressed as T = (number of storeys)/10, we expect that the damage of the tall buildings ( 10 storeys) in Bucharest area is dramatically amplified when the earthquake size is above a critical value (M ~ 7). To investigate a possible correlation between the sedimentary layer topography and the ground motion parameters, we applied the H/V ratio method. The method ([8]) consists of the following steps: (1) selection of a window of S-wave seismogram, (2) tapering with 5% cosine function, (3) Fast Fourier computation for each horizontal component, (4) spectra smoothing with a Hanning window with constant bandwidth on a logarithmic frequency scale, (5) computation of the spectrum corresponding to the resultant horizontal motion (the root mean square of the NS and EW component spectra), (6) computation of the spectral ratio between the horizontal and vertical components, and (7) estimation of the arithmetical average of all the spectral ratios for a given site.

328

Bogdan Grecu et al.

Fig. 4 shows the mean H/V ratio calculated for the same earthquakes as in Fig. 2. The contribution in the period range related to the fundamental resonance of sedimentary cover, lacking in the absolute spectral representation, is prominent in the corresponding H/V spectral ratios. Our results prove that the spectral ratios method can remove reasonably the source effects, at least for Vrancea subcrustal earthquakes. This is valid no matter the earthquake size is or observation site is considered. A similar result was reported by Bonjer et al. (1999) for eight moderate-size earthquakes (M < 6).
16

04/03/1977

12

30/08/1986

10

30/05/1990

H/V SPECTRAL RATIO

12

H/V SPECTRAL RATIO

H/V S PECTRA L R ATIO

0 0.1 1.0 PERIOD (s)

2 .0 0 5 .0 0

0 10.0
2 0.0 0 5 0.0 0

0 0.1 1.0 PERIO D (s)

2 .0 0 5 .0 0

10.0

2 0 .0 0

5 0 .0 0

0.1

1.0

2.00

5.00

10.0

20.00

50.00

PERIO D (s)
04/03/2001

19/01/1998

12

H/V SPECTRAL RATIO

H/V SPECTRAL RATIO

0 0.1 1.0
2.00 5.00

0 10.0
20.0 0 50.0 0

0 .1

1 .0

2 .0 0

5 .0 0

1 0.0

2 0 .0 0

5 0 .0 0

PER IO D (s)

PERIO D (s)

Fig. 4.- H/V ratios obtained for INC station. On the basis of the entire data base of Table 1 we look for any possible increasing trend matching the increase of the uppermost sedimentary layer thickness towards the north over the Bucharest area. No clear feature was detected reflecting the shift of the period of the peak spectral ratio value, as we could expect. The result is not changing if we consider the spectral ratios for a moderate-size or major earthquake. We could assume that the range of variation of the fundamental resonance period (or equivalently the layer thickness) over the study area is too fine relative to the errors to be noticeable in the spectral ratios variation or the impedance contrast between the sedimentary layer and the bedrock (400 m/s versus 600 m/s in the shear-wave velocities) is not sufficiently high to imply a well-resolved response period in the recorded motion.

328

2 0 -2 -4 4 2 0 -2 -4 4 2 0 -2 -4 4 2 0 -2 -4 4 2 0 -2 -4 0 1 2 3 t (s) 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Seismic ground motion characteristics in the Bucharest area

329

B GM

CONCLUSIONS
The depth contour map of the top of the
B HM

sedimentary cover, obtained on the basis of borehole information ([5]), shows a fundamental resonance period in the range 1-2 s with a general sinking trend along the

BMG

south to north direction. The associated range of fundamental resonance periods matches the dangerous domain for damaging tall buildings in Bucharest urban area. Despite the lateral variation of the shallow sedimentary layers, the variation of the peak ground motion parameters over the city area is not relevant for engineering purposes in terms of maximum amplitude level or frequency content (an example is presented in Fig. 5). Except one single record at Expozitie station for the 1986 earthquake, the PGA amplitude per earthquake

BST

Fig.

5.

Radial

components

for

4.03.2001 Vrancea event recorded at 5 stations in Bucharest.

differs from one site to the other by a factor of less than 2, and does not seem to show a reliable and systematic spatial pattern (to be eventually correlated with variations in the local structure effects) The increase in the fundamental resonance period of the sedimentary cover from S to N (1 to 2 s) is not resolvable in the ambient noise and earthquake measurements. The ambient noise measurement data analyzed by Bonjer et al. (1999) match well the fundamental period domain estimated from borehole data, but are not sufficient to reproduce the increasing trend of the sedimentary cover thickness. Similar results are obtained using earthquake recordings: the peak of the H/V spectral ratios is generally matching the predominant period domain of the sedimentary layer, but no significant correlation can be found with the lateral variation of its thickness. As our analysis shows, the general belief that the local sedimentary structure is the main factor controlling the predominant period of the ground motion in the Bucharest area, is questionable. If this would be the case, the predominant period should appear always, no matter the earthquake size. The resonance is actually present in the H/V ratio for all kind of earthquake or ambient noise, proving this way that the ratio method proposed by Nakamura (1989) is reasonably removing the source effect for the Vrancea earthquakes in

330

Bogdan Grecu et al.

Bucharest area. However, if we look to the absolute spectra in the case of moderate-size events (even for magnitudes below 7, but greater than 6), the amplitude in the range of 1-2 s period is negligible. Consequently, only the largest Vrancea shocks (M > 7) are able to effectively excite the resonance periods of the sedimentary shallow layer (in the range 1-2 s) which are responsible for the collapse of the tall buildings in the city.

REFERENCES 1. Bonjer, K. P., Oncescu, M. C., Driad, L., Rizescu, M. (1999). A note on empirical site response in Bucharest (in Vrancea Earthquakes, Tectonics, Hazard and Risk Mitigation, Wenzel et al., eds.), p. 149-162, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2. Bonjer, K.-P. and Rizescu, M., 2000. Data Release 1996-1999 of the Vrancea K2 Seismic Network. Six CDs with evt-files and KMI v1-,v2-, v3-files. Karlsruhe-Bucharest, July 15, 2000. 3. Delgado, J., C. Lopez Casado, J. Giner, A. Estevez, A. Cuenca and S. Molina, 2000: Microtremors as a geophysical exploration tool: applications and limitations. Pure Appl. Geophys. 157, 1445-1462. 4. Ibs-von Seht and Wohlenberg, 1999. Microtremor measurements used to map thickness of soft

5.

6.

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sediments, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 89, p.250-259. seismic motion in Bucharest urban area, Rev. Roum. Geophys. (in print). cts in Bucharest caused by the May 30-31, 1990 Vrancea seismic events, in Seismic Hazard of the CircumPannonian Region (eds. G.F. Panza, M. Radulian, C.I. Trifu), Pure Appl. Geophys., 157, 249-267. Nakamura, Y., 1989. A method for dynamic characteristics estimations of subsurface using microtremos on the ground surface. QR RTRI 30, 25-33

7.

8. 9.

Oncescu, L., 1997. SPERATIO Users Guide

Sandi, H., Borcia, I.S., Mandrescu, N., 2001.

xyyxxxy yx y y w dedf gehieejklkm nj if x y yyyy okl gkief kelp

vrncene, Proc. A doua conferinta Nationala de Inginerie Seismica, Bucuresti, 8-9 noiembrie 2001, vol. I, 102-111.

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Seismic ground motion characteristics in the Bucharest area

331

Acknowledgments. This study benefited of the data recorded by the K2 network installed in the framework of Collaborative Research Center 461 Strong Earthquakes of Karlsruhe University in collaboration with the National Institute for Earth Physics, Bucharest-Magurele (Bonjer et al., 2000). The data recorded for each year are available on CD's for the partners (Bonjer and Rizescu, 2000; Bonjer et al., 2002). The waveform data for the strong events (1977, 1986,1990) were supplied by Building Research Institute (INCERC) within the project Seismic Database for the Romanian Earthquakes, MENER, Contract no. 90/15.10.2001