Influence of the variability of soil profile properties on weak and strong seismic response

Abstract Characterizing the potential effect of local site conditions on the amplification of ground motions is a critical aspect of seismic hazard and risk assessment. The aim of this study is to investigate the reliability and the limit of using the average shear wave velocity in the upper 30 m of the soil profile v s , 30 , as single proxy, to characterize seismic site effects for weak and strong events. To this regard, a dataset of 300 one-dimensional soil profiles with a given v s , 30 are generated through a Monte Carlo approach. Their seismic responses are computed for a set of 40 real accelerograms, with different seismic features. The vertical propagation from the bottom of the generated columns is modeled using a finite element spatial discretization, accounting for both linear and nonlinear soil behavior. The site dominant frequency f 0 and the shear wave velocity gradient in the profile B 30 are proposed as proxies to characterize seismic site effects and the variability of the response spectra for the numerical signals, at the free surface of the set of columns, is discussed. Correlations between site-specific amplification factors deduced using the numerical response spectra and the proposed site proxies are analyzed for different sub-ranges of periods. The obtained amplification factors are then compared to those proposed by different international and national design codes. The results, obtained under assumption of linear and nonlinear behavior of soil, emphasize the need to introduce complementary site parameters proxies, in addition to v s , 30 , to characterize the expected site effects in design response spectra.