Stochastic strong ground motion simulations on North Anatolian fault zone and Central Italy: Validation, limitation and sensitivity analyses


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, İnşaat Mühendisliği Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2010

Öğrenci: BELİZ UĞURHAN

Danışman: AYŞEGÜL ASKAN GÜNDOĞAN

Özet:

Assessment of potential ground motions in seismically active regions is essential for purposes of seismic design and analysis. Peak ground motion intensity values and frequency content of seismic excitations are required for reliable seismic design, analysis and retrofitting of structures. In regions of sparse or no strong ground motion records, ground motion simulations provide physics-based synthetic records. These simulations provide not only the earthquake engineering parameters but also give insight into the mechanisms of the earthquakes. This thesis presents strong ground motion simulations in three regions of intense seismic activity. Stochastic finite-fault simulation methodology with a dynamic corner frequency approach is applied to three case studies performed in Düzce, L’Aquila and Erzincan regions. In Düzce study, regional seismic source, propagation and site parameters are determined through validation of the simulations against the records. In L’Aquila case study, in addition to study of the regional parameters, the limitations of the method in terms of simulating the directivity effects are also investigated. In Erzincan case study, where there are very few records, the optimum model parameters are determined using a large set of simulations with an error-minimization scheme. Later, a parametric sensitivity study is performed to observe the variations in simulation results to small perturbations in input parameters. Results of this study confirm that stochastic finite-fault simulation method is an effective technique for generating realistic physics-based synthetic records of large earthquakes in near field regions.