Deaggregation of Probabilistic Ground Motions for Selected Jordanian Cities

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) approach was adopted to investigate seismic hazard distribution across Jordan. Potential sources of seismic activities in the region were identified, and their earthquake recurrence relationships were developed from instrumental and historical data. Maps of peak ground acceleration and spectral accelerations (T=0.2 and T=1.0 sec.) of 2% and 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years were developed. This study deaggregated the PSHA results of 2% and 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years results of twelve Jordanian cities to help understand the relative control of these sources in terms of distances and magnitudes. Results indicated that seismic hazard across these cities is mainly controlled by area sources located along the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system. Cities located at short distances from the DST tend to show close deaggregation behavior. Some discrepancies may exist due to the proximity or remoteness of these cities relative to the DST seismic sources and local seismicity. The modal or most probable distance distribution indicated that the distance to the earthquake which contributes most to the hazard at each city is mainly controlled by shaking along faults associated with near seismic area sources. The influence of adjacent seismic sources to the seismic hazard of each city is more evident for the long period spectral acceleration. Distant sources, such as the eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus, Suez and the southern region of the Gulf of Aqaba are relatively low, but can not be neglected due to the intrinsic uncertainties and incomplete seismic data

FSI methods for seismic analysis of sloshing tank problems

The long-period components in earthquake ground motions, which attenuate gradually with distance, can induce sloshing waves in the liquid containment tanks although they are located far away from the seismic source. The resulting sloshing waves generate additional forces impacting the wall and roof of the tanks and may cause extensive damage on the tank structure. Numerous examples of tank damages due to sloshing of fluid have been observed during many earthquakes. Nevertheless, the effect of sloshing is usually primitively considered in most of the seismic design codes of tanks. On the other hand, the derivation of an analytical solution for the sloshing response of a liquid storage tank subjected to harmonic excitation includes many assumptions and simplifications. Most of the analytical solutions in the recent literature assumed the containing liquid to be invicid, incompressible and irrotational, and the tank structure to be an isotropic elastic plate with uniform stiffness, mass and thickness. Even though, experimental works are necessary to study the actual behavior of the system, they are time consuming, very costly and performed only for specific boundary and excitation conditions. However, appropriate numerical simulation using fluid structure interaction techniques can be used to predict the hydrodynamic forces due to the high-speed impacts of sloshing liquid on a tank wall and roof. These simulations can reduce the number of experimental tests. The nonlinear finite element techniques with either Lagrangian and/or Eulerian formulations may be employed as a numerical method to model sloshing problems. But, most of the Lagrangian formulations used to solve such problems have failed due to high mesh distortion of the fluid. The arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian techniques are capable of keeping mesh integrity during the motion of the tank. In this study, an explicit nonlinear finite element analysis method with ALE algorithm is developed and sloshing phenomenon is analyzed. The analysis capabilities of the method are explained on a technical level. Although, the developed numerical procedure is applicable to deformable structures, the accuracy of the method is validated with the existing analytical formulation derived from potential flow theory as well as the experimental data carried out on rigid tanks when subjected to harmonic and earthquake ground motions. High consistency between numerical and experimental results in terms of peak level timing, shape and amplitude of sloshing waves is obtained not only for non-resonant excitation but also for resonant frequency motion

Istanbul Earthquake Rapid Response and the Early Warning System

One hundred strong motion accelerometers have been placed in populated areas of Istanbul, within an area of approximately 50 x 30 km, to constitute a network that will enable rapid shake map and damage assessment after a damaging earthquake. After triggered by an earthquake, each station will process the streaming strong motion to yield the spectral accelerations at specific periods and will send these parameters in the form of SMS messages to the main data center through available GSM network services. A shake map and damage distribution will be automatically generated. The shake and damage maps will be available on the Internet and will also be pushed to several end users. For earthquake early warning information ten strong motion stations were located as close as possible to the Marmara Fault. The continuous on-line data from these stations will be used to provide near-real time warning for emerging potentially disastrous earthquakes