3D basin-shape ratio effects on frequency content and spectral amplitudes of basin-generated surface waves and associated spatial ground motion amplification and differential ground motion

This paper presents the effects of basin-shape ratio (BSR) on the frequency content and spectral amplitudes of the basin-generated surface (BGS) waves and the associated spatial variation of ground motion amplification and differential ground motion (DGM) in a 3D semi-spherical (SS) basin. Seismic responses were computed using a recently developed 3D fourth-order spatial accurate time-domain finite-difference (FD) algorithm based on the parsimonious staggered-grid approximation of the 3D viscoelastic wave equations. The simulated results revealed the decrease of both the frequency content and the spectral amplitudes of the BGS waves and the duration of ground motion in the SS basin with the decrease of BSR. An increase of the average spectral amplification (ASA), DGM and the average aggravation factor (AAF) towards the centre of the SS basin was obtained due to the focusing of the surface waves. A decrease of ASA, DGM and AAF with the decrease of BSR was also obtained.