Seismic Wave Propagation in Alluvial Basins and Influence of Site-City Interaction

Jean-François Semblat (1) , Marc Kham (2, 3) , P.Y. Bard (1, 4)

1 LCPC/MSRGI - Division Mécanique des Sols des Roches et de la Géologie de l'Ingénieur
2 LAMSID - UMR 8193 - Laboratoire de Mécanique des Structures Industrielles Durables
3 LCPC - Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées
4 LGIT - Laboratoire de Géophysique Interne et Tectonophysique

The geometrical and mechanical features of alluvial deposits have a major influence on seismic wave propagation and amplification. However, for alluvial basins located in densely urbanized areas, the surface structures such as buildings could influence seismic wave propagation near the free surface. In this paper, the influence of surface structures on seismic wave propagation is analyzed numerically in the case of an actual 2D shallow basin. At a local scale, the vibration of a surface structure can induce a seismic wavefield in the surficial soil layers. At the scale of an alluvial basin, the site-city models considered herein show that the city effect can lead to a significant seismic wavefield modification when compared to the free-field case. The coincidence between the fundamental frequencies of the soil layers and eigen frequencies of the surface structures is a key parameter to investigate site-city interaction. When comparing simplified site-city models (Kham et al., 2006) to the basin-city model, the influence of the lateral heterogeneities on the site-city interaction is found to be significant. Indeed, the seismic wavefield radiated by the city appears to be trapped within the alluvial basin and specific directivity features are found for this wavefield. The influence of site-city interaction on the free-field seismic hazard may then be significant. The effects of the site-city interaction are beneficial in some parts of the city or detrimental in other parts (esp. city boundaries). These effects strongly depend on the urban configuration (city heterogeneity, building density, etc). Finally, the full characterization of the seismic wavefield in densely urbanized areas could often raise the need for investigating site-city interaction and consider such parameters as basin and city fundamental frequencies, building density and city arrangement, as well as basin effects combined with the seismic wavefield radiated by the city.

Mots clés: seismic waves; site effects; site-city interaction; alluvial basins; boundary element method

Domaines: Mécanique des structures [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des structures [physics.class-ph]

Jean-François Semblat, Marc Kham, P.Y. Bard. Seismic Wave Propagation in Alluvial Basins and Influence of Site-City Interaction. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 2008, 98 (6), pp.2665-2678. ⟨10.1785/0120080093⟩. ⟨hal-00355601⟩