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Determination of Site
Characteristics
3.1 Introduction
In seismic regions, geotechnical site investigations should obviously include the gathering of information about the physical nature of the site and its environs that will
allow an adequate evaluation of seismic hazard to be made. The scope of the investigation will be a matter of professional judgement, depending on the seismicity of the
area and the nature of the site, as well as of the proposed or existing construction.
In addition to the effects of local soil conditions upon the severity of ground motion,
the investigation should cover possible earthquake danger from geological or other
consequential hazards such as:
fault displacement;
subsidence (flooding and/or differential settlement);
liquefaction of cohesionless soils;
failure of sensitive or quick clays;
landslides;
mudflows;
dam failures;
water waves (tsunamis, seiches);
groundwater discharge changes.
The seismic characteristics of local geology and soil conditions described briefly in the
following section provides an introduction to the site investigations, and to the determination of design ground motions and soil response analyses described in Chapters
4 and 5.
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local compared to the total terrain transversed between the earthquake source and the
site. On the assumption that the gross bedrock vibration will be similar at two adjacent
sites, local differences in geology and soil produce different surface ground motions at
the two sites. Factors influencing the local modifications to the underlying motion are
the topography and nature of the bedrock and the nature and geometry of the depositional soils. Thus, the term local may involve a depth of a kilometre or more, and an
area within a horizontal distance of several kilometres from the site.
Soil conditions and local geological features affecting site response are numerous,
and some of the more important are now discussed with reference to Figure 3.1.
(1) The greater the horizontal extent (L1 or L2 ) of the softer soils, the less the
boundary effects of the bedrock on the site response. Mathematical modelling is
influenced by this, as discussed in Section 5.2.2.
(2) The depth (H1 or H2 ) of soil overlying bedrock affects the dynamic response, the
natural period of vibration of the ground increasing with increasing depth. This
helps to determine the frequency of the waves amplified or filtered out by the soils
and is also related to the amount of soil-structure interaction that will occur in
an earthquake (Sections 5.2 and 5.3). The Mexico earthquakes of 1957 and 1985
witnessed extensive damage to long-period structures in the former lake bed area
of Mexico City where the flexible lacustrine deposits caused great amplification
of long period waves (Rosenblueth, 1960; Romo and Seed, 1986). A more typical
example of an earthquake where the fundamental period of structures which were
most damaged was closely related to depth of alluvium, was that in Caracas in
1967 (Seed et al., 1972). Again, long-period structures were damaged in areas of
greater depth of alluvium.
(3) The slope of the bedding planes (valleys 2 and 3 in Figure 3.1) of the soils
overlying bedrock obviously affects the dynamic response; but it is less easy to
deal rigorously with non-horizontal strata.
(4) Changes of soil types horizontally across a site (sites F and G in Figure 3.1) affect
the response locally within that site, and may profoundly affect the safety of a
structure straddling the two soil types.
(5) The topography of both the bedrock and the deposited soils has various effects on
the incoming seismic waves, such as reflection, refraction, focusing, and scattering. Unfortunately many of these effects always remain suppositional; for
instance, while focusing effects in bedrock (valleys 1 and 2 in Figure 3.1) may
be amenable to calculation, how are the response modifications at sites G and J
to be reliably predicted due to these effects in valley 3?
While there will always be some inherent variability (uncertainty) in the spatial
distribution of ground motion, it may well be that geological features such as
hidden irregularities in the bedrock topography explain some of the otherwise
unexplained differences of response observed at nearby sites. For example, in the
1971 San Fernando earthquake (Housner and Jennings, 1972), at two locations
on the campus of the California Institute of Technology, the peak acceleration
recorded at one site was 21% g while only 11% g was recorded at the other;
whereas the local soil profiles at both locations were considered identical.
Bedrock
H1
L1
Figure 3.1
H2
L2
Bedrock
30
Elevation (m)
20
10
0
10
Sand lenses
20 m
20
10
0
10
Liquefied sand
20
10
0
10
Failure surface
20
10
0
10
Figure 3.2
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(9)
The water content of the soil is an important factor in site response. This applies
not only to sloping soils as mentioned above, but liquefaction may also occur
in flat terrain composed of saturated cohesionless soils (Section 5.2.2). Classical examples of failures of this type occurred in the Alaskan and Tokachi-Oki
earthquakes referred to above, and in the much-studied 1964 Niigata earthquake.
(10)
Faults of varying degrees of potential activity sometimes cross the site of proposed or existing construction and cases of damage have been recorded. The
recurrence intervals of given levels of fault displacement both horizontal and
vertical, and the structures ability to tolerate the design displacement, sometimes
need to be evaluated (Section 4.8).
(11)
(12)
(13)
3.3
As soil types and thicknesses, and to a lesser extent rock, vary widely from site to site
in a region and worldwide, many different ways of classifying sites exist. Fortunately
as knowledge has grown in recent years of site response to earthquakes, there has been
32
Spectral acceleration
Maximum ground acceleration
Rock - 28 records
0.5
1.0
1.5
Period seconds
2.0
2.5
3.0
(a)
Spectral acceleration
Maximum ground acceleration
1
AEC regulatory guide
0
0.5
1.0
1.5
Period seconds
2.0
2.5
3.0
(b)
Figure 3.3
(a) Mean acceleration spectra for different site conditions; (b) mean plus one
standard deviation (84 percentile) acceleration spectra for different site conditions
(after Seed et al., 1974)