Publication Date:
2013-10-01
Description:
Defining the reference rock or soil condition related to ground-motion prediction is an important aspect of seismic-hazard analysis. In a previous study by the authors, a method was proposed to establish a reference rock profile for Switzerland through the comparison of empirical amplification functions with shear-wave velocity profiles at 27 selected sites of the Swiss National Seismic Network. The retrieved velocity profile served as reference for a regional ground-motion prediction equation. However, a lacking piece of information remained: the anelastic attenuation for such a reference profile. Reference attenuation is essential to correctly model and interpret amplification at high frequencies. In the present study we extended our approach to simultaneously model both the reference shear-wave velocity profile and the corresponding attenuation for Japan. We compared site-specific attenuation measurements with quarter-wavelength average velocities at 36 soil and rock sites from the Japanese KiK-net strong-motion network. The selected sites are characterized by a lack of observed resonance phenomena in order to avoid trade-off between amplification and attenuation effects. We establish a parametric model through regression analysis. The resulting model gives us the possibility to estimate anelastic attenuation of a rock site with a given velocity profile and provides the base for host-to-target adjustments of real or modeled ground motion.
Print ISSN:
0037-1106
Electronic ISSN:
1943-3573
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Physics
