Title of the paper

Author
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This paper considers the Boundary Element Method (BEM) to analyze the seismic site effects of
the Volvi basin located about 30 km from north-east of the city of Thessaloniki in Greece. Authors
have adopted two types of model viz. simplified model with two-layer on elastic bedrock and
detail model with six different layers on elastic bedrock having distinct physical properties.
Results
Simplified model
The simplified model has shown interesting results. At the lower frequency (1Hz) largest
amplification occurred in the deepest part of the basin and seems to correspond to the
fundamental mode of vibration of the basin but the amplification factor was not very high (Fig. 1).
For the frequency 0.8 Hz, two areas of the large amplification appeared at the free surface of the
central part of the basin with maximum amplification of 9.5. But with increasing frequency, the
area of higher amplification has been shifted towards the right of the model. For 1.8 Hz frequency,
amplification reached up to 8.3 and the area corresponds to the extreme left of the medium depth
of the basin (Fig. 1). For 2.4 Hz frequency, the shallow right of the basin predicted larger
amplification.

Figure 1. Amplification values in the basin estimated numerically at various frequencies.

Comparison with the complete model
In the complete model all six layers on elastic bedrock were considered. The main aim of this
comparison is to understand how the soil layering and basin geometry affect the site
amplification.
1

The frequency domain comparison has shown that at the lower frequency (0.85 Hz) there was
large difference between simplified and complete model almost 40% on maximum values. The
complete model leads to amplification value up to 15 at the central part of the basin (Fig. 2). The
amplification patterns were also different because the complete model has given four distinct
amplification areas as compared to two areas in simplified model. With increasing frequency (1.75
Hz), amplification values for both models are slightly different. For frequency 4.75 Hz, the
differences are significant on maximum values but not so large on amplification location (Fig. 2).
These results have indicated that the amplification level estimated for the complete model is
larger than the simplified model because the basin effects strengthen the seismic wave
amplification. Therefore, this research has clearly highlighted the effect of basin geometry and soil
layering on site effects.
In time domain comparison, upward propagating SHwave described by a Ricker signal was considered. The
time domain solution derived from the simplified model
has clearly shown the effect of lateral heterogeneities
and the amplification of the first arrival also obvious.
Seismic wave effect on Volvi basin influenced by soil
layering and basin edge were also observed. In contrast,
in complete model the amplification of the first arrival
was larger than the simplified model. Since the soil layer
was considered more precisely, amplification due to
velocity contrast was more pronounced in the complete
model. The signal duration was significantly increased
showing the combined influence of basin effect and soil
layering.
This study has clearly shown the effect of basin
geometry and soil stratigraphy considering simplified
model with two layers of greater thickness and
complete model with complex soil stratigraphy. Based
on this study, it can be concluded that the detail soil
layering
gives
stronger
heterogeneities
and
consequently larger amplification than the simplified
geometry gives. Thus seismic wave amplification in Figure 2. Amplification factor vs distance for
alluvial basin is mainly affected by basin geometry and both models.
soil layering.