ATTENUATION

GROUP 2

To design structures that pose low risk to the public, engineers must understand
the behavior of these systems when subjected to various loads, including seismic loads.
Strong shaking during an earthquake is responsible for most damage to structures except
in cases where structures are built directly on a fault line, in which case the shaking and
ground rupture contribute to the damage. The severity of shaking at a site is controlled
primarily by two factors: earthquake characteristics and attenuation of ground motion.
Attenuation is the dissipation of seismic energy as seismic waves move through layers of
varying soil and rock strata. Also, once at a site, seismic waves can be modified by the
site characteristics. The waves are largest where they are formed and gradually get
smaller as they move away. This decrease in size, or amplitude, of the waves is called
attenuation.
Example - when you throw a pebble in a pond, it makes waves on the surface that
move out from the place where the pebble entered the water. The waves are largest where
they are formed and gradually get smaller as they moved away. This decrease in size or
amplitude is called attenuation. Seismic waves become attenuated as they move away
from the earthquake source.
Traveled path. The propagation of seismic waves depends on the percentage of
the path travel through rock or soft sediment, with the presence of mountains and valleys
from the source to the site. The results of the traveled paths are the amplification,
attenuation or modification, more or less, of the source basic characteristics.
Furthermore, during an earthquake, different structures will behave differently, so
characteristics of the structural system have a major influence on seismic structural
performance. Therefore, damage to a structure is primarily controlled by the
characteristics of the earthquake, site, and structure.

 EARTHQUAKE CHARACTERISTICS

Although the primary factor controlling an earthquake’s effect on structural

behavior at a particular site is the PGA, the largest PGA earthquakes do not always cause
the most damage from shaking. Shaking is rather complex and it is difficult to
characterize its full effect using a single parameter. Strong shaking also significantly
depends on duration and frequency content, and to a lesser extent on factors such as
length of fault rupture, focal depth, orientation of the fault, speed of rupture, and whether
or not fault rupture reaches the ground surface.
The size of an earthquake can be measured using various parameters (intensity,
magnitude, etc.), the most important of which is PGA when it comes to seismic-resistant
design. This is obtained from the acceleration time history recorded with an
accelerometer (which is a recording of the variation of acceleration amplitude with time)
and is typically given as a fraction of the acceleration due to gravity. PGA is generally
largest near the epicenter and tends to decrease away from it because of attenuation.
However, PGA can increase significantly depending on a number of factors, especially
the geology of the path of the waves to a specific site and local soil conditions.
Large PGA earthquakes do not always create the most damage. In fact, a large
PGA earthquake would produce little damage to some structures if it only occurs for a
short time, whereas a relatively small PGA earthquake that continues for several seconds
can be devastating to some structures. This can be exemplified using the first two
earthquake records in Figure 2.8; whereas the PGA for the 1940 El Centro earthquake
(PGA = 0.32g, M = 7.0) is smaller than 30 Introduction to Earthquake Engineering that
from the 1966 Parkfield earthquake (PGA = 0.5g, M = 6.2), the resulting damage from
the El Centro earthquake was much more extensive than that associated with the
Parkfield earthquake. This can largely be attributed to the much longer strong-motion
duration of the El Centro earthquake. The duration of strong motion (or shaking) is
important because the longer the strong motion, the more energy is imparted to the
structure; and because of the limited capacity of a structure to absorb energy, there is a
greater potential for inelastic response for longer strong shaking.
 SITE CHARACTERISTICS

The strength of shaking usually diminishes as waves travel away from the focus
because of attenuation. Surface waves usually experience the same effect; this results in
smaller shaking for sites at greater distances from the epicenter. However, shaking can
also strengthen depending on the geologic conditions along the path of the wave between
the focus and the site, as well as the soil conditions and topography at the site. Soil
condition and topography, in particular, can greatly affect the characteristics of the input
motion in terms of the amplitude and natural period of the shaking at the site. A soft
subsurface deposit or steep topography (ridge or hill) causes the ground to vibrate like a
flexible system, while a stiff bedrock causes the ground to vibrate as a rigid body. That is,
hard rock vibrates with the same frequency and amplitude as the input motion, while the
vibration of a flexible underlying deposit would depend on its inherent stiffness and
damping characteristics. For this case, the stiffness of the underlying material has the
greatest effect on the characteristics of the input motion at a site (assuming effects of
damping to be negligible). Low-frequency (long-period) input motions are amplified
more at sites underlain by soft soils than those underlain by stiff ones, whereas stiff soil
deposits amplify high-frequency (short-period) input motions more than soft ones.
The inherent stiffness of the ground beneath a site is a function of its shear-wave
velocity, and thickness of the sediment above the bedrock. Shear-wave velocity is faster
for hard rock than for soft soil; consequently, seismic waves travel faster through hard
rock than through soft soil. So, when seismic waves pass from rock into soil, they slow
down. This slower speed must be accompanied by an increase in wave amplitude
(amplifying the ground shaking) in order for the flow of energy to remain constant, which
is required for the conservation of elastic wave energy. An increase in soft sediment
thickness has a similar effect (increased amplitude) because of a decrease in material
density.
• STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
Once seismic waves have been modified for ground conditions at the site of a
structure, the structure responds to ground excitation based on its inherent characteristics,
as well as the age of the structure and the quality of its construction. The characteristics
of a structure that have the largest influence on its response include its weight and
stiffness, and they will be covered in later chapters. Damping can play a significant role
when structures remain within the elastic limit, but remains a much smaller effect for
structures that deform into inelastic behavior. Although all these characteristics affect the
displacement amplitude and natural period of a structure, stiffness has the greatest effect
on structural response. A stiff structure vibrates with the same frequency and amplitude
as the input motion, while a flexible structure may or may not vibrate in sync with the
input motion, depending on how similar its natural period is to the input excitation
period. For instance, long-period (low-frequency) input ground excitations amplify the
deformations of flexible structures more than those of stiff ones, whereas short-period
(high-frequency) input ground excitations amplify deformations of stiff structures more
than those of soft ones.