Strong motion simulation at Abu Zenima city, Gulf of Suez, Egypt

Abstract

Earthquake hazard assessments are an important task for the design of earthquake resistant structures and insurance industry. Such assessments get more importance when the site of interest is located near an active earthquake zone. Such situation is present for the location of Abu Zenima city. The city is characterized by the presence of industrial and Maritime platform in addition to other Oil production facilities. These industrial facilities motivated the present work.The simulated earthquake ground motion time histories are conducted using stochastic technique. The magnitude used for simulation is obtained using both probabilistic and deterministic approaches. An analysis using both approaches shows that moderate earthquakes in the vicinity of the site could have the largest effects on the area. Thus an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 at a distance of 21km is chosen as design earthquake.The simulated ground motions are presented in terms of acceleration, velocity, and displacement time histories. In addition the response spectra are also presented that may be used for engineering purposes.