Seismic Hazard Assessment for a Wind Farm Offshore England

Abstract

Offshore wind has become a major contributor to reducing global carbon emissions. This paper presents a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis for the Sofia Offshore Wind Farm, which is located about 200 km north-east of England in the southern North Sea and will be one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world once completed. The seismic source characterization is composed of two areal seismic source models and four seismic source models derived using smoothed gridded seismicity with earthquake catalogue data processed by different techniques. The ground motion characterization contains eight ground motion models selected based on comparisons with regional data. The main findings are (1) the variation in seismic hazard across the site is negligible; (2) the main source controlling the hazard is the source that includes the 1931 Dogger Bank earthquake; (3) earthquake scenarios controlling the hazard are Mw = 5.0–6.3 and R = 110–210 km; and (4) the peak ground accelerations on rock are lower than for previous regional studies. These results could help guide future seismic hazard assessments in the North Sea.

Seismic Microzonation Map for a Fixed-Jacket Platform in the Malay Basin

“…The PSa values in the maps showed incremental trends as the return period increased. This is supported by Carlton et al ( 2022) [39], where a comparison of PGa values based on return periods showed a linear correlation (where a higher value was obtained for a higher return period). (e) 2500 years Birkmann (2013) [40] suggested that maps and figures representing characteristics of the complex phenomenon should be used as communication tools for the hazard.…”

“…The PSa values in the maps showed incremental trends as the return period increased. This is supported by Carlton et al (2022) [39], where a comparison of PGa values based on return periods showed a linear correlation (where a higher value was obtained for a higher return period).…”