Application of seismic risk analysis and earthquake simulation methods to the western region in Saudi Arabia

Abstract EN

This paper presents a series of applications of existing methods of seismic risk analysis and earthquake simulation to four major cities in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia.

Seismic risk maps available in literature, in the form of isointensity and isoacceleration graphs for the region, are first used to obtain design spectra for the four cities of Jizan, Jeddah, Makkah and Yanbu.

Earthquake generation procedures are then applied to obtain the time history for ground acceleration, velocity and displacement.

It is believed that the artificial earthquakes generated in this work reasonably reflect the geological and seismic nature of the region and due to the complete lack of any recorded accelerograms, these artificial earthquakes could be of great value for the detailed analysis and design of earthquake-resistant structures in the region.