SESAME: Site effects assessment using ambient excitations

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 00.0085-1

Key words (English)

Ambiant vibrations; site effects; Tokeshi method;
Earth Sciences; Environmental Protection; Meteorology; Safety

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: EVG1-2000-00026

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.4a.8 Generic R&D activities

Short description (English)

See abstract

Partners and International Organizations (English)

Coordinator: UJF, Grenoble (F)

Abstract (English)

This proposal deals with the important issue of site effect estimation for seismic risk mitigation, with special attention to urban areas. It focuses on two low cost techniques using ambient seismic vibrations, and aims at clarifying their actual ability to provide useful, direct or indirect, information for local amplification estimates. The first technique, a very simple one, is the so-called H/V technique advertised by Nakamura; he second, more advanced, one uses noise array measurements to derive the dispersion curves of surface waves, and from that the velocity profile. The proposed work includes a theoretical and numerical part to better understand the nature of seismic noise, and to develop validated numerical tools to simulate seismic noise in arbitrary environments. It also includes thorough experimental and data processing investigations to clearly assess the stability, robustness, reliability and physical meaning of these 2 techniques. All the theoretical, experimental and numerical results will be used to propose user guidelines for the H/V technique (a drastic need at the European and world levels since this technique is very often misused), and practical recommendations for array measurements (not yet as developed), and corresponding software

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 00.0085-1