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Site effect estimation in the Tehran basin and its impact on simulation results

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Abstract

Recent earthquake damage distributions have demonstrated that the influence of local geology on ground shaking is a significant factor in engineering seismology. So, calculating the site effect is a priority to get a trustworthy assessment of the seismic risk for a location, in addition to studying the local seismic sources. The signal amplitude can be amplified by this effect throughout a range of periods. The site effect has been calculated using a variety of computational and experimental techniques, such as seismic noise measurements. In this study, to calculate the site effect, the analysis of accelerograms recorded by Iran’s strong motion network of the Road, Housing, and Urban Development Research Center was used. Here, 294 records from 63 stations were used to calculate the H/V (horizontal to vertical spectral ratio) curve as well as the near-surface high-frequency attenuation parameter (κ0). The classification method is based on determining the peak period at each station. To examine site effect consideration, we use the hybrid method composed of the finite difference method for low frequencies (< 1 Hz) and a stochastic finite fault method for high-frequency radiation (> 1 Hz) to simulate an earthquake scenario on the Niavaran fault, which is located north of Tehran, Iran. According to the findings, different site classes cause spectral amplitude variations ranging from 11 to 28% at different periods (T = 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, and 4.0 s).

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Data availability

The data generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology. We would like to acknowledge Building and Housing Research Center that provided strong motion data. This study was supported by the International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES), and is a part of the project: “Physics Based Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis by considering uncertainties, case study: Tehran region.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES), No. 26, Arghavan St., North Dibajee, Farmanieh, P.O. Box, Tehran, 19395-3913, Iran

    Reza Alikhanzadeh & Hamid Zafarani

  2. BC Hydro, Burnaby, Canada

    Behzad Hassani

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  1. Reza Alikhanzadeh
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  2. Hamid Zafarani
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  3. Behzad Hassani
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Contributions

Reza Alikhanzadeh: Material preparation, data collection, and analysis, simulation, writing the manuscript.

Hamid Zafarani: Discussed the results and commented on the manuscript and supervision.

Behzad Hassani: Discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Reza Alikhanzadeh.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 8 and Figure 18

Table 8 BHRC stations used in the study
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Fig. 18
figure 18figure 18figure 18figure 18figure 18

Mean average H/V ratios (black curves) and standard deviations (green area) at 63 stations

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Alikhanzadeh, R., Zafarani, H. & Hassani, B. Site effect estimation in the Tehran basin and its impact on simulation results. J Seismol 27, 429–453 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-023-10149-5

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