A particular case study for earthquake soil amplification

Abstract

Seismic wave amplification study is conducted for the town of Avcilar, Istanbul, located at about 120 kilometers west of the epicenter of the Kocaeli earthquake of August 17, 1999. The soil data is obtained from the literature published earlier by various researchers. It is determined, through the use of well known computer program Shake 2000, that the three major predominant periods of the ground are, 1.60, 1.00 and 0.70 s, respectively. Thus, the reasons of extensive damages occurred to 6 to 8 storey high residential buildings in the region, may be attributed to both the long distance effects of the high period waves of the earthquake and soil amplification. © 2011 The Seismological Society of China and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.