Stochastic site response analysis in consideration with various probability distributions of geotechnical properties

Abstract

Site response and soil profiles are a function of one another, and the probable distribution of soil profiles have significant effects on the site response. This study presents the effects of random variations of geotechnical properties on the site response using the different probabilistic distributions. The uncertainties of soil properties including shear wave velocity (), the density, and the nonlin-ear soil properties are investigated and applied for the site-specific in the United States. A computer program, PSHAKE, written in Python has been developed for solving the variabilities soil properties via Monte Carlo Simulations. The com-patibility and the enhancement of the proposed procedure are verified with the variability in using the Toro model. The outcomes obtained from PSHAKE are verified based on the agreement with the reference solution given by the program Strata. Additionally, the results in sensitivity analysis indicate that uncertain unit weight has a smaller impact than the material degradation curve on probabilistic model.