CEVE 578- Earthquake Engineering

Homework-2
Sutanu Bhowmick

1(a) The body wave magnitude (mb) is used to measure distant earthquakes with
deep foci whereas surface wave magnitude (M s) is used to measure shallow,
distant and moderate to large earthquakes. The body waves decay in a faster
rate with distance compared to surface waves, so in this case there is a
difference in their magnitude values.
The surface wave magnitude best describes the size of 1964 Alaska Good
Friday earthquake as it is a very strong, shallow earthquake having long fault
rupture (signifying large energy release). Moreover the body wave magnitude
value almost saturates around 6.5, so beyond that it is not possible to
distinguish sizes of earthquakes.

1(b) Earthquake is caused due to sudden movement of ground which releases

strain energy that was built up over a period of time. The total energy released
during earthquake can be estimated from the empirical relationship (Gutenberg
and Richter, 1956)
Log E=4.2+1.5Ms
E expressed in joules.
It can be observed for a unit increase in magnitude the energy release of
earthquake increases 32 folds. That means if in the highly seismic region, the
elastic strain energy built up is equivalent to a magnitude 6.0 earthquake, in
order to release that exact energy 32X32X32 ~ 30,000 earthquakes of
magnitude 3.0 are needed which is impossible. So the suggestion of averting
even a moderate earthquake of magnitude 6.0 by small earthquakes of
magnitude 3.0 is impractical.

1(c)
Seismic Moment (M0)=GAD
Where, G=rupture strength, A=area of the fault and D=fault slip
G=175X1000 N/m2 A=(80X1000)X(23X1000) m2 D=2.5 m

M0=8.05X1014 Nm
 Moment magnitude Mw
Mw=log(M0)/1.5-6.0
Mw=3.64
Seismic moment (M0)= 8.05X1014 Nm
Moment magnitude (Mw)=3.64

3 (a) Epsilon ( ) is a scalar intensity measure which can be defined as the number
of times of standard deviation the logarithm of the observed spectral
acceleration at a particular time period differs from the mean logarithm
spectral acceleration at that time period whose value can be obtained from
any ground motion prediction equation. Its equation is,
ln Sa (T ) ln Sa (T )

ln Sa (T )

ln Sa(T )
Where, is the logarithm of spectral acceleration value of the observed
ln Sa (T )
data at a particular time period, is the mean logarithm spectral
acceleration value at that time period obtained from ground motion prediction
ln Sa (T )
equation and is the standard deviation value of logarithmic spectral
acceleration at the same time period also obtained from the ground motion
prediction equation.
The epsilon value quantifies how much the spectral acceleration value is
differing from the estimated value obtained by ground motion prediction
equation due to the presence of valley or peak region in the observed spectral
acceleration. Small value of epsilon signifies the spectral acceleration value
at that time period lies in valley whereas large value signifies its location near
the peak. The fundamental time period of structures get elongated after it
starts yielding, so if we consider the response of structures even after its yield
point, then only the measure of spectral acceleration at its fundamental time
period would not be sufficient to predict its response. If nonlinear dynamic
analysis is carried out for any structure under a suit of ground motions which
ln Sa(T )
are scaled such that all of them have the same value, then for ground
motions having small values of epsilon, the spectral acceleration values will
Sa (T )
increase just beyond and vice versa. Thus it can be observed that any
 structural response parameter will have decreasing value with increasing
value of epsilon. Thus epsilon can be used to estimate structures response.

3 (b) HOUSNER SPECTRAL INTENSITY

This earthquake intensity measure is defined as the area enclosed by the
pseudovelocity spectrum between time period of 0.1 to 2.5 s.
2.5
IH PSV (T , )dT
0.1

Housners spectral intensity measures the average of the maximum stress

experienced by structures between the time periods of 0.1 to 2.5 s. Most of
the civil structures have fundamental time period in that range. In a
qualitative sense, it measures the destructiveness of the earthquake. The unit
is in lengths.
For Northridge earthquake data provided,
IH
=1.0667 m
For Mexico City earthquake data provided,
IH
=3.0035 m