5/6/2020

SEISMIC DESIGN OF
STRUCTURES
SEISMIC WAVES + PARAMETERS OF
EARTHQUAKE - ASSIGNMENT NO. 2

Instructor: Engr. Dr. Muhammad Aslam

Department of Civil Engineering

Submitted by: Mahwish Saleem

Roll No. : MCVS-023R19-23
Question No. 1 - What is Seismic Waves. Explain the types of Seismic Waves
and highlight the difference between ground motions and the seismic waves?

Seismic Waves
Seismic waves are waves of energy that travel through the Earth's layers, and are a result of
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, magma movement, large landslides and large man-made
explosions that give out low-frequency acoustic energy. Large strain energy released during
earthquake propagates in all directions within earth as it is an elastic medium. These waves are
called seismic waves, transmit energy from one point to the other and finally carry it to the surface.
Seismic wave fields are recorded by a seismometer, hydrophone (in water), or accelerometer.

The propagation velocity of seismic waves depends on density and elasticity of the medium as
well as the type of wave. Within earth, waves travel in almost a homogeneous elastic unbounded
medium as body wave, on the surface they move as surface waves. Reflection and refraction of
waves takes place near the surface at every layer; as a result, the waves get modified.

Earthquakes create distinct types of waves with different velocities; when reaching seismic
observatories, their different travel times help scientists to locate the source of the hypocenter.

Types of Seismic Waves.

Particle motion of surface waves is larger than that of body waves, so surface waves tend to cause
more damage.

1) BODY WAVES
Body waves travel through the interior of the Earth along paths controlled by the material
properties in terms of density and modulus (stiffness). This effect resembles the refraction of light
waves. Two types of particle motion result in two types of body waves: Primary and Secondary
waves.

a) Primary waves
Primary waves (P-waves) are compressional waves that are longitudinal in nature. P-waves are
pressure waves that travel faster than other waves through the earth to arrive at seismograph
stations first, hence the name "Primary". These waves can travel through any type of material,
including fluids, and can travel nearly 1.7 times faster than the S-waves.

b) Secondary waves
Secondary waves (S-waves) are shear waves that are transverse in nature. Following an earthquake
event, S-waves arrive at seismograph stations after the faster-moving P-waves and displace the
ground perpendicular to the direction of propagation. S-waves can travel only through solids, as
fluids (liquids and gases) do not support shear stresses
 .

Reflection and Refraction takes place near the surface due to which the P-wave and S-wave change
the phases as PP, PS, SP, SS etc.

2) SURFACE WAVES
Seismic surface waves travel along the Earth's surface. They are called surface waves, as they
diminish as they get further from the surface. They travel more slowly than seismic body waves
(P and S). In large earthquakes, surface waves can have an amplitude of several centimeters. They
are of two types – L & R waves (Love and Rayleigh Waves)

a) Love waves
Love waves are horizontally polarized shear waves (SH waves). They are named after A.E.H.
Love, a British mathematician who created a mathematical model of the waves in 1911. Particles
move in horizontal plane perpendicular to the direction of wave propagation.

b) Rayleigh waves
Rayleigh waves, also called ground roll, are surface waves that travel as ripples with motions that
are similar to those of waves on the surface of water. The associated particle at shallow depths
move in vertical plane, they trace an elliptical path retrograde.
 Earthquake Wave Paths
The path that a wave takes between the focus and the observation point is often drawn as a ray
diagram.
When reflections are taken into account, there are an infinite number of paths that a wave can take.
Each path is denoted by a set of letters that describe the trajectory and phase through the Earth. In
general an upper case denotes a transmitted wave and a lower case denotes a reflected wave. The
two exceptions to this seem to be "g" and "n"

Notation
Various waves are named according to below nomenclature.
 For example:
 ScP is a wave that begins traveling towards the center of the Earth as an S wave. Upon
reaching the outer core the wave reflects as a P wave.
 sPKIKP is a wave path that begins traveling towards the surface as an S-wave. At the
surface, it reflects as a P-wave. The P-wave then travels through the outer core, the inner
core, the outer core, and the mantle.

Ground Motions and Seismic Waves

Ground motion is the movement of the earth's surface from earthquakes or explosions. Ground
motion is produced by seismic waves that are generated by sudden slip on a fault or sudden
pressure at the explosive source and travel through the earth and along its surface.

As the waves come to the surface from the rock bed filtered through the soil mass the waves pass
on the surface as a surface waves. These surface waves causes Motions on the Ground and these
motions can be measured with the help of equipment called Seismograph. As shown in below
figure, during a ground motion, P waves arrived first followed by the PP waves, then followed by
S waves, then followed by SS waves, and at the end, we get the surface waves.

Seismic waves create four types of ground motions as described below:

i. Practically Single Shock

It occurs near the source that is if we take a record near the source then we will get this kind of
trace and it is observed in firm ground and for shallow earthquake.

ii. Moderately Long Irregular

It is moderately long irregular trace of earth and observed for places, which are at moderate
distances from the source and were also recorded on firm ground such as El-centro earthquake.

iii. A Long Ground Motion With Prevailing Period

It typically happens when there is soft soils and ground motions get filtered through the soft soil
for example LOMA-Prieta earthquake.

iv. Ground Motion Involving Large Scale Ground Deformation

It is a disaster earthquake where landslides, soil liquefaction etc. do takes place, for example
Chilean and Alaska Earthquakes.
Ground motions are divided on basis of frequency of seismic wave in three categories as
shown below:

1. Single Shock
After first shock itself, the ground records almost die down.

2. Mixed Frequency
This is a mixed frequency kind of record, which are observed in most earthquakes on firm ground.
Energy of earthquake is distributed over a large range of frequency.

3. Predominant Frequency
This is the record taken for the soft soil conditions, in such case we will get a predominant
frequency around which most of the energy is concentrated.
Question No. 2 - Describe the Magnitude and explain the important
Parameters of Earthquake used for the Seismic Analysis of
Structures?

Parameters of Earthquake
Motions on the ground can be measured with the help of equipment called Seismograph. The traces
from the Seismograph and visual observation can be used to quantify the size of the earthquake.

The parameters which are used to quantify or determine the size of the earthquake are known as
the Earthquake Parameters.

There are many measurement parameters; some of them are called as directly measured and some
are indirectly derived from the measured ones. Many of empirical relationships and the parameters
are used as INPUTS for the Seismic Analysis of Structures.

There are two most important parameters of earthquake - Magnitude and Intensity.

The first of these is an estimate of the energy released, and the value is referred to as magnitude.
It is often referred to as “Richter magnitude”. There are many ways to measure magnitude —
including Charles Richter’s method developed in 1935 — but they are all ways to estimate the
same number: the amount of energy released.

The other way of assessing the impact of an earthquake is to assess what people felt and how much
damage was done. This is known as intensity. Intensity values are assigned to locations, rather
than to the earthquake itself, and intensity can vary, depending on the proximity to the earthquake
and the types of materials and conditions of the subsurface.

Some important terminologies used in earthquake are described below:

  The region that is mostly effected by the earthquake inside the earth is known as the Focal
Region.
 The center of the focal region is known as the origin of the earthquake and is known as
Focus.

 Above focus on surface of the ground, we have the Epicentre.

 Site is a place where the local effects of earthquake is of importance to us, the distance
between the site and the epicentre measured on the surface is called Epicentral Distance
(r, R, Δ).
 The inclined distance between the site and the focus is called the Hypocentral Distance.
 The vertical distance between focus and the epicentre is called the Focal Depth (h).

Most of the damaging earthquakes have:

 Shallow focal depth < 70 km.
 Depth of foci greater than 70 km are categorized under intermediate or deep earthquakes.

In addition, two more phenomena are important:

 Fore Shock: These are defined as those, which occur before the main shock.
 After Shock: These are defined as those, which occur after the main shock. Mostly, it was
observed that after the major shock or major earthquake is over than there are certain minor
shocks were observed after the earthquake, so they are typically the aftershocks.

1. MAGNITUDE OF EARTHQUAKE
Magnitude of earthquake is a measure of energy released by the earthquake and has the following
attributes:
 It is independent of place of observation.
 It is a function of measured maximum deflections of ground at a specified location..
 Magnitude (M) scale is open ended.
 M > 8.5 is rare ; and M < 2.5 is not perceptible.

From earthquake magnitude, we can calculate:

1. Energy, moment, displacement, b and a values, fault width, fault length, rupture area, rupture
width, surface rupture length, predict the ground motions, like PGA, PGV, PGD,

A number of methods for estimating magnitude are listed in below table:

 a) Local Magnitude (ML)
The Richter scale is a measure of the strength of earthquakes. This was later revised and renamed
the local magnitude scale, denoted as ML or ML . It is defined as log of the maximum amplitude
in microns. The relationship between the local magnitude and the amplitude of ground motion is:

For measuring this maximum amplitude, the Wood Anderson Seismograph is used and it is placed
at a distance of 100 km from the epicentre. Since, Wood Anderson Seismograph is no more in use,
the CODA (T) Length defined as total signal distance used these days. Therefore, the relationship
between local magnitude & Coda length (T) is:

Constant a & b are obtained from the study of the local region.

b) Surface Magnitude (Ms)

The surface wave magnitude (Ms) scale is one of the magnitude scales to describe the size of an
earthquake. It is based on measurements in Rayleigh surface waves in order to improve resolution
on larger earthquakes.

This encouraged Gutenberg and Richter to develop magnitude scales based on tele seismic
observations of earthquakes. Two scales were developed, one based on surface waves, Ms , and
one on body waves, Mb. Surface waves with a period near 20s generally produce the largest
amplitudes on a standard long-period seismograph, and so the amplitude of these waves is used to
determine Ms, using an equation similar to that used for ML.
Relationship between the surface magnitude and the amplitude of ground motion by using Praga
formulation is:

c) Moment Magnitude (Mw)

It is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude based on its seismic moment (a measure of the work
done by the earthquake).

It was defined in a 1979 paper by Thomas C Hanks and Hiro Kanamori. Moment magnitude (Mw )
is considered the authoritative magnitude scale for ranking earthquakes by size. It is more directly
related to the energy of an earthquake than other scales. It has become the standard scale.

Where: MO is the Seismic Moment, A is the area (m2), U is the longitudinal displacement (m), and
G is shear modulus of rigidity 3 × 1010 N/m2.

d) Body Magnitude (Mb)

Body-waves consist of P-waves that are the first to arrive , or S-waves, or reflections of either.
Body-waves travel through rock directly.
The original "body-wave magnitude" was developed by Gutenberg & Richter (1956) to overcome
the distance and magnitude limitations of the ML  scale, and does not saturate until around M 8.
However, it is not sensitive to events smaller than about M 5.5.

The relationship between the magnitude and the amplitude of the ground displacement is given in
equation as:

1.1. ENERGY RELEASE

Energy E (Joules) releases in relationship b/w surface magnitude:

Magnitude (7.3) – Energy release of 50 megaton nuclear explosion.

Some empirical formulae are developed for different magnitude of earthquake.

a) Log relationship between the magnitude of earthquake and the rupture length:

b) Log relationship between the magnitude of earthquake and the displacement at the fault
line:

The other three equations shows the relationship between the rupture length, rupture area and
displacement at fault line with moment magnitude Mw.

The average value of the rupture length is given by equation and there is standard deviation for
this measurement is also presented.

2. INTENSITY OF EARTHQUAKE
Earthquake intensity is very different from earthquake magnitude. Earthquake intensity is a
ranking based on the observed effects of an earthquake in each particular place. Therefore, each
earthquake produces a range of intensity values, ranging from highest in the epicenter area to zero
at a distance from the epicenter.

The most commonly used earthquake intensity scale is the Modified Mercalli earthquake intensity
scale.
Magnitude / Intensity Comparison
The following table gives intensities that are typically observed at locations near the epicenter of
earthquakes of different magnitudes.