Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

2485

Date

2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Engineering

Concentration

Civil Engineering

Committee Chair

Shahram Pezeshk

Committee Member

Roger Meier

Committee Member

Charles Camp

Committee Member

Chris Cramer

Abstract

Two main objectives have been studied in this dissertation are proposing a hybrid broadband (HBB) earthquake simulation method and the development of alternative ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for central and eastern North America (CENA). Providing such equations, which represents the expected ground shaking levels from earthquake sources, are important as those are being implemented in the probabilistic seismic hazard and risk analysis, and therefore they are financially contributed in the design and construction of structures and infrastructures. This research has two major part. In the first part, a new platform to generate earthquake time histories is developed based on a hybrid broadband simulation technique. The generation of artificial time histories is a promising solution in the absence of the sufficient and appropriate recorded seismograms. Due to lack of recorded strong ground motions in CENA, generation of synthetic seismograms is inevitable in engineering (e.g., time history analyses of structures) and engineering seismology (e.g., GMPEs development) applications. The proposed method incorporated the kinematic earthquake source model, deterministic wave propagation (using discrete wavenumber/finite element technique), and the stochastic finite-fault method to make a suite of appropriate seismic time histories. A new set of GMPEs is developed for CENA in the second part of this study. The proposed comprehensive framework for HBB simulation technique is implemented to develop the new hybrid empirical GMPEs. Hybrid empirical estimates are derived using the regional adjustment factors between two regions (host and target) along with empirical GMPEs from the host region. In this study, western United States and CENA are considered as the host and target regions, respectively. Modeling parameter variability is considered in ground-motion simulations and GMPEs development. Ground-motion models are developed for the earthquake magnitude range of 5–8, in the distance range of 2–1000 km, and for the reference rock site condition with Vs30 = 3 km/s for CENA. The products of this research may contribute to update the future national seismic hazard maps developed by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and upcoming building codes.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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