A Basis for Evaluation of Seismic Hazard and Design Criteria for Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This paper presents the fundamental issues and policy decisions that formed the basis of the hazard and design aspects of a comprehensive research project conducted for development of the preliminary seismic design criteria for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study represents the first regionally consistent and systematic collection and critical treatment of the limited historical and instrumental data on earthquakes and seismotectonics of the region, and development of seismic design criteria. The development of the seismic design criteria followed somewhat conservative course, rather than a strict scientific approach, in estimation of the seismic hazard. One of the significant outcome of the study was the preparation of an upto-date and refined earthquake catalog of the region. The catalog contains both, the historical data available in Arabian and English literature, and the data recorded by international and local seismic monitoring agencies. The data were critically treated and superimposed upon the available tectonic information of the Arabian peninsula to obtain a preliminary seismotectonic map of the region. The results of the probabilistic seismic hazard assessment indicate that the highest relative predicted ground-motion occurs near the northwestern border neighboring the Gulf of Aqaba and also near the southwestern border, neighboring Yemen. Based on iso-acceleration map for 10% probability of being exceeded in 50 years, for the seismic design purposes the Kingdom was delineated into four seismic zones. Following UBC format the seismic zones are assigned numbers 0, 1, 2A and 2B. Widely used codes, SEAOC and UBC were selected as the model for development of seismic design recommendations. Selection of the structural system is based on structural performance category which is determined by seismic zone number and the intended occupancy category. Rw-factors for different types of structural system were assigned lower values in consonance with the design and construction practices prevalent in the country. The significance of this study is in its implementation of a global scheme in development of seismic design criteria of a region beset with limited seismic data.

Seismic hazard assessment for Yanbu metropolitan area, western Saudi Arabia

“…Depending on the nature and depth of local soil deposits, the intensity of the seismic ground motions may be amplified and the frequency characteristics of the motions significantly (Thenhaus et al 1986;Al-Haddad et al 1994) indicated that the average value of PGA is about 100 cm/s 2 through area of study, but this value did not take the local site amplification factor into account. Recently and through the first microzoning study of the Yanbu metropolitan area Alyousef et al 2014), it is illustrated that the presence of very soft to soft sediments may amplify the ground motion more than six times that of bedrocks.…”

Vulnerability Assessment of Residential Buildings in Jeddah: A Methodological Proposal

“…According to seismic maps, most of the Kingdom regions are no-and low-risk levels. Areas along the western coast, especially in the northwest and southwest are considered to be of moderate risk level [13].…”

Preliminary probabilistic seismic hazard assessment for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia based on combined areal source model: Monte Carlo approach and sensitivity analyses

“…The earliest study for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was performed by Thenhaus et al [80], in which peak ground acceleration (PGA) and velocity (PGV) were estimated for stiff soil and for 10% probability of being exceeded in 100 years using several ground motion prediction equations (GMPE). Al Haddad et al [8,9] used these ground-motion models to estimate PGA for 10% of being exceeded in 50 years and suggested seismic zonation map for KSA to be used as a basis for seismic design. Seismic hazard for particular areas in KSA and the neighboring countries was analyzed by Deif et al [36] (Sinai Peninsula and Gulf of Aqaba area, PGA and spectral acceleration for rock sites, single GMPE); Deif et al [37] (area of construction of Makkah-Madinah high-speed rail, PGA and spectral acceleration for rock sites, consideration of several GMPEs in logic tree scheme); Osman [56] GMPE); Al-Malki and Al-Amri [11] (southwestern part of KSA, PGA and spectral acceleration were estimated for bedrock and sedimentary rock sites on the basis of semi-theoretical ground-motion models obtained by stochastic simulation); Al-Arifi et al [7] (northwestern part of KSA, PGA and spectral acceleration for rock sites, single GMPE).…”

“…However the number of documented large earthquakes in the Arabian Peninsula is low due to sparsity of population. The seismotectonic setting around Saudi Arabia suggests that large earthquakes can occur along the Red Sea rift zones, Arabian Gulf and Zagros belt [4,6,8,39,40,45,60,64,66,78,79,82]. Design of buildings and structures in earthquake prone regions, seismic risk estimation and management, and insurance business require information related to expected seismic effect; the expected effect should be expressed in terms of earthquake ground-motion parameters, such as seismic intensity, peak amplitudes of ground motion, pseudo-spectral acceleration (PSA) and ground-motion time histories.…”