Chapter 4 Quantification of Seismic Acceleration

4.1 Background

Earthquake may cause significant failure and movement of slopes, embankments,

earth dam or excavation. Many landslides triggered by earthquakes have resulted in
major disasters. Failure may result from increased shear stress in rock mass or loss of
strength during dynamic loading conditions imposed by an earthquake.

From a traditional method of rock slope stability analysis, it has been stated that
earthquake acceleration reduces frictional force, which resist sliding (because the
acceleration induced by the earthquake is to be added to an outward force W to the
force acting on the slopes).

Earthquake-induced landslides, which have been documented from as early as 1789

BC (Li, 1990), have caused tremendous amount of damage through history. In many
earthquakes, landslides have been responsible for as much or more damage than all
other seismic hazards combined. In the 1964 Alaska earthquake, for example, an
estimated 56% of the total cost of damage was caused by earthquake induced
landslide (Wilsonand and Keefer; 1985). Kobayashi (1981) found that half of all
deaths in large (M > 6.9) earthquakes in Japan between 1964 and 1980 were caused
by landslides. The 1920 Haiyuan earthquake (M > 8.5) in Ningxia Province of China
produced hundreds of large landslides that caused more than 100,000 deaths (Close
and McCormic, 1922).

In light of the above-mentioned facts, study of effects of earthquake is crucial in slope

stability analysis.

4.2 Basic aspects of earthquake

When an earthquake occurs, different types of seismic waves are produced: body
waves and surfaces waves. Body waves, which can travel through the interior of the
earth, have two types: P-waves and S-waves.

P-waves are also known as primary, compression or longitudinal waves involve

successive compression and rarefaction of the materials through which they pass. P-
wave can travel through solids and liquids. The motion of an individual particle is
parallel to the direction of a P-wave travel.

S-waves, also known as secondary, shear or transverse waves, causes shearing

deformation as they travel through a material. The motion of an individual particle is
perpendicular to the direction of S-wave travel. The direction of particle movement
can be used to divide S-waves into two components: vertical plane movement (SV)
and horizontal plane movement (SH). The speed, at which body waves travels, varies
with the stiffness of the materials they travel through.
Since geologic materials are stiffest in compression, P-waves travel faster than other seismic
waves. Fluids, which have no shearing stiffness, cannot sustain S-waves.

Surface waves results from the interaction between body waves and the structure & superficial
layers of the earth. For engineering purposes, surface waves can be divided in rayleigh and love
waves. Rayleigh waves, produced by interaction of P- and S-waves with earth surface, involve
both vertical and horizontal particle motions. Love waves result from the interaction of SH-
waves with the soft superficial layer and have no vertical component of particles motion.

The definition of some highly accepted terminology in Earthquake Engineering is given in

Figure 4.1. The point at which rupture begins and the first seismic waves originate is called the
focus or hypocenter of the earthquake. From the focus, the rupture spreads across the fault at
velocity of 2 to 3 km/sec (Bolt, 1989). The point on the ground surface directly above the focus
is called epicenter.

Figure 4.1 Notation for description of earthquake location (from Kramer, 1996)

Effects of earthquake

The major effects of earthquake may be broadly grouped into two general classes: (a) Faulting
and (b) Ground shaking

(a) Faulting

Faulting is a primary displacement of bedrock. It may or may not carry through to the surface,
and generally it is limited to relatively narrow, active fault zones. Typical displacements vary
from a few centimeters to meters (Nilsen and Palmstrom, 2000).

(b) Ground shaking

When an earthquake occurs, seismic waves radiate away from the source and travel rapidly
through the earth’s crust. When these waves reach the ground surface, they produce shaking that
may last from seconds to minutes. The strength and duration of shaking site depends on the size
and location of the earthquake and the characteristics of the site. At site near the source of a large
earthquake, ground shaking can cause tremendous damage.

Although seismic waves travel through rock over the overwhelming majority of their trip from
the source of an earthquake to the ground surface, the final surface of the trip is often through
soil, and characteristics of the soil can greatly influence the nature of the shaking at the ground
surface. Soil deposits tend to act as “filters” to seismic waves. Since soil conditions often vary
very dramatically over short distances, the level of ground shaking can vary significantly within
a small area.

4.3 Determination of earthquake magnitude

4.3.1 Characteristic parameters

The “size” of an earthquake is obviously a very important parameter, and it has been described in
different ways. Prior to the development of modern instrumentation, methods for characterizing
the size of the earthquakes were based on crude and qualitative descriptions of the effects of the
earthquakes. More recently, modern seismographs have allowed the development of a number of
quantitative measures of earthquake sizes. In other words, the relative sizes of earthquakes can
be described either quantitatively or qualitatively.

The oldest measure of earthquake size is earthquake intensity. Earthquake intensity refers to
human reaction and degree of damage to the surroundings. Qualitative measures of intensity can
be determined by interviewing people and examining damage. The Modified Mercalli Intensity
(MMI) scale is more common today for qualitative measures of intensity.

The possibility of obtaining a more objective, quantitative measure of earthquake came about
with the development of modern instrumentation for measuring ground motion during
earthquakes. In the past 60 years, the developments of seismic instruments, and our
understanding of the quantities they measure, have increased dramatically. Seismic instruments
allow an objective, quantitative measurement of earthquake size called earthquake magnitude to
be made. Most measurements of earthquake magnitude are instrumental (i.e., based on some
measured characteristic of ground shaking). Methods have been established for describing
quantitatively how much energy is released during an earthquake.

The surface wave magnitude is most commonly used to describe the size of shallow (less than 70
km) focal depth. The surface wave magnitude (Gutenberg and Richter, 1936) is a worldwide
magnitude scale based on the amplitude on rayleigh waves with a period of about 20 second. The
surface wave magnitude is obtained from (Kramer, 1996):

Ms= log A +1.66 log+2.0 (4.1)