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Estimation of Site Effects For Vijayawada City: January 2011
Estimation of Site Effects For Vijayawada City: January 2011
Estimation of Site Effects For Vijayawada City: January 2011
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Akhila Manne, Research student, Earthquake Engineering Research Centre, IIIT Hyderabad, manneakhila.civil@gmail.com.
S. Silpa Chowdary, Post Graduate student, Earthquake Engineering Research Centre, IIIT Hyderabad.
D. Neelima Satyam, Assistant professor, Earthquake Engineering Research Centre, IIIT Hyderabad.
ABSTRACT: Site effects play a major role in the seismic ground motion and have been ascertained by many seismologists
and earthquake engineers. Traditionally, direct waves were used for the site effect study (Gutenberg, 1957; Borcherdt, 1970)
but later it has been realized that the source, path and site characterization are the important parameters that affect earthquake
ground motion. Local site effects can cause considerable modification of seismic amplitudes. Depending on the ground
characteristics, the ground shaking is influenced, which may result in the amplification (causing resonance) or attenuation.
Nonlinear amplification at sediments sites appears to be more pervasive than seismologists used to think (Aki et.al., 1991).
Spectral amplification factor is a parameter which can be used to find out theses effects. Site effect is also an important
parameter in microzonation study. The information about the local site effects is useful in the simulation of strong ground
motions and hence, the results of the site response studies are one of the most important inputs for seismic hazard assessment
of a region. In this research paper, Vijayawada city which falls in zone III (IS 1893: 2002) has been considered for the site
response study. It is the 34th largest town in India (population wise), and the 3rd largest town in Andhra Pradesh. The shear
wave velocities and bulk density are used to estimate the average spectral amplification factor. Amplified site response at the
soft soil sites are obtained using the input shear wave velocities.
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Akhila Manne, S.Silpa Chowdary & D. Neelima Satyam
gives the intensity increment for different types of geological There are around 22 seismic sources (mainly faults) in and
units given by Medvedev [6]. around Vijayawada in a radius of 300km and among them the
prominent active fault is the Gundlakamma Fault which
Table 1: Intensity Increment for each geological unit trends in a NW-SE (fault length of 76 km, lat (start) 79.51,
long (start) 80.066, lat (end) 15.788, long (end) 16.473;
Lithology MSK Scale SEISAT).
Granites 0.0 There are four types of soils in the Vijayawada area, viz.,
Lime stone Sand Stone Shale 0.2 – 1.3 Black cotton soils (58%), Sandy clay loams (23%), Red
Gypsum, Marl 0.6 – 1.4 loamy soils (17%), and Sandy soils (2%). The sandy soils
Coarse material ground 1.0 – 1.6 form a fringe along the coast. The black cotton soil is most
extensive and occurs in Western part. The sandy clay loams
Sandy Ground 1.2 – 1.8
formed along river. The nature and depth of the soil layers
Clayey Ground 1.2 – 2.1 have a great influence on the intensity at ground level. The
Fill 2.3 – 3.0 curvature of a sediment-filled basin structure in particular can
Moist Ground (gravel, sand, Clay) 1.7 – 2.8 capture body waves and cause some incident body waves to
propagate through the alluvium as surface waves resulting in
Moist fill and Soil ground 3.3 – 3.9
stronger shaking effects and longer duration of strong ground
motion (Kramer) [7].
Vijayawada area has varied lithological formations ranging in
age from Archaean crystallines to recent alluvium.
For the last few decades, several researchers have noted that
Depending upon the occurrence of these rock formations the
groundwater can play a direct role in earthquake occurrence
area can be divided into three lithological provinces. i) The
and earthquake related damage and can magnify the
north and western part occupied by crystalline group of rocks
damaging effects of ground surface. And also from the 2004
comprising of Khondalites, Peninsular gneisses, Dharwars
Indonesian quake it has been observed that GWT can cause
and Proterozoic group of rocks, ii) North-eastern and central
quantifiable changes in locations which are about thousand
part occupied by Sandstones of Gondwana group and
miles from the epicenter (USGS, 2005) .Groundwater level
iii)Eastern and southern part occupied by River and Coastal
influences the ground response significantly and hence
Alluvia
cannot be neglected for site effect analysis.The groundwater
in Vijayawada occurs under water table to semi-confined
SEISMICITY AND GEOTECHNICAL DATA: conditions in the weathered/fractured zones of Khondalites
The exact details of the geological, geomorphologic and and sand zone of Alluvium. The ground water table depth
geotechnical data along with seismiotectonic background and observed to be varying from 0-7 m below ground level.
seismicity are needed to evaluate the ground response and Figure 1 shows the ground water contour map of study
site effects. region.
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Estimation of site effects for vijayawada city
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 2 (a), (b), (c), (d) Average Spectral amplification curves at Gunadala, Kanuru, Ramalingeswara Nagar &
Bhavanipuram
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Akhila Manne, S.Silpa Chowdary & D. Neelima Satyam
0.119g was taken as the strong motion data. Different bore Locations where soil amplification factor ranging from 2.5 to
hole data collected along the stretch of Vijayawada city has 2 can have moderate damage. SAF less than 2 relatively can
been considered, and the depths, bulk density and shear wave have low level of damage.These results together with studies
velocities, damping ratio (5%) of each layer is given as input on the correlation between weak-motion site amplification
for the software. The shear wave velocities of each layer have and earthquake intensity demonstrate the importance of in
been calculated from the corrected SPT ‘N’ value using the situ determination of weak motion site amplification for
equation 1. seismic zonation.