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Regional ground motion simulation around Delhi due to future large earthquake

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Abstract

The seismic activity in the capital city of Delhi is a matter of concern in the design and safety of numerous infrastructure facilities such as buildings, pipelines, railway lines and heritage structures. The city is continuously exposed to several small and large earthquakes due to local and Himalayan earthquake sources. Determination of ground motion in this region is an important problem for engineers to estimate hazard due to future damaging earthquakes. This article discusses the application of the spectral finite element method to simulate ground motion time histories in and around Delhi for regional earthquakes. The regional ground motions are obtained using the SPECFEM3D Globe package considering the effect of topography, bathymetry and three-dimensional variations of material properties and ellipticity of the Earth. The method is demonstrated for two local earthquakes near Delhi by comparing the peak amplitudes, arrival times and duration of the simulated time histories with the available strong motion records. Further, a hypothetical large earthquake is assumed in the epicentral region and ground motions are simulated. The statistics of the obtained peak ground displacements and the contours of permanent ground residual displacements are presented for the epicentral region.

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  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, 600036, India

    S. Jayalakshmi & S. T. G. Raghukanth

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  1. S. Jayalakshmi
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  2. S. T. G. Raghukanth
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Correspondence to S. Jayalakshmi.

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Jayalakshmi, S., Raghukanth, S.T.G. Regional ground motion simulation around Delhi due to future large earthquake. Nat Hazards 82, 1479–1513 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2254-8

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