Micro-seismic hazard assessment of Ahmedabad city, Gujarat (Western India) through near-surface characterization/soil modeling

Abstract

The micro-seismic hazard estimation including quantification of the ground motion amplification has been conducted at Ahmedabad city based on near-surface characterization/soil modeling. The city has experienced substantial damage in the course of the 2001 Bhuj earthquake. A total of 20 boreholes were drilled in the city up to the depths of 40–80 m. A five-fold methodology is adopted: (1) Assessment of the seismic perspective of the area under study, (2) demarcation of the engineering bed layer (EBL) through geophysical (seismic) surveys and the soil properties, (3) soil modeling using geotechnical and the geophysical parameters, (4) assessment of the strong ground motion at EBL through simulation considering far-field earthquake scenarios and near-field earthquakes scenario and (5) surface strong-motion estimation by ground response analysis based on equivalent-linear approach. The near-surface soil models were prepared from the borehole logs, shear-wave velocity estimated from the seismic survey and the soil properties like soil classification and density. The strong motion at EBL is computed by simulating seismotectonically justified scenario earthquakes through the stochastic finite-fault source modeling technique using the region-specific input parameters. The surface-strong motion is estimated by performing ground response analysis (with SHAKE) at every borehole using EBL-strong motion and prepared soil models. The EBL was found varying from 28 to 54 m in depth in Ahmedabad city. The effect of far-field and near-field earthquake sources was considered for assessing the hazard. To compensate for the uncertainty, a total of 108 and 81 input parametric combinations for near-field earthquake scenarios, and far-field earthquake scenarios, respectively have been considered for estimating the strong motion at EBL. The peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 52–111 cm/s2 and 108 cm/s2 are estimated at EBL due to near-field earthquake scenarios and far-field earthquake scenarios, respectively. The PGA through ground response analysis at surface level is found to be varying from 101 to 279 cm/s2 for near-field earthquake scenarios and, 118–161 cm/s2 for the far-field earthquake scenarios. The spectral acceleration (SA) (at surface level) has also been calculated for damping of 5%. The average SA distribution maps for 0.2 s (1–2 story), 0.55 s (4–5 story), 1 s (high rise) and 1.25 s period (large structures) have been prepared for both types of scenario earthquakes. The strong motion amplification is computed to be in the range of 1.6–3.3 for near-field earthquake scenarios and 2.2–3.0 for near-field earthquake scenarios.