Assessment of the vertical distribution on seismic ground motion

It is very important for the facilities such as nuclear power plants to infer seismic force loading on the earthquake stability assessment of the building foundation and the surrounding slope. The purpose of this paper was to propose a method to evaluate underground seismic coefficients, taking into account dynamic response along the depth in horizontally multi-layered ground. The dynamic property of the seismic coefficient was analyzed on the basis of earthquake records observed at hard and soft rock sites mostly found in Tertiary deposits and sedimentary ground sites of the Pleistocene and Holocene epoch. The evaluation methods of a vertical distribution on underground seismic coefficients were proposed for a few calculation methods on the classified layered ground. Extended evaluation for underground seismic coefficients was confirmed with respect to some multi-layered ground during strong motion. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.