Simplified Evaluation of Ground Motion Amplification in the Vicinity of a Topographic Feature

ABSTRACT

A two-parameter expression for the quantification of topographic effects in ground response analysis at sites located in the vicinity of a topographic feature is presented. The expression is derived from parametric analysis of convex and concave canonical shapes after identifying that the diffracted field in these geometries remains relatively stable in the low dimensionless frequency regime. The proposed expression is used in the estimation of topographic effects at two sites located in realistic topographic scenarios over a given period range. To show the quality of the approximate formula results are compared with numerical simulation values.

KEYWORDS:

• Topographic effects
• site response analysis
• ground motion prediction
• transfer function
• diffracted waves

Acknowledgments

This project was conducted with financial support from Universidad EAFIT-Colombia and from COLCIENCIAS (Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación), Colombia through the 528-2012: Program for conducting PhD Studies in Colombia. The authors would like to thank the objective and constructive comments made by three anonymous reviewers. These comments and suggestions were used to enhance the quality of the paper.

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare that they have no known-competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.