Deterministic Investigation of Effect of Stress Drop on Seismic Site Response Analysis of Allahabad City

Abstract Due to the high stress of Faizabad ridge close to Allahabad city and the absence of strong-motion records for any engineering studies, it is essential to use a stochastic model to study the deterministic earthquake scenario of Allahabad city. The work investigates the effect of stress drop for an earthquake on 30 sites (83 boreholes) located across the city using 1-D seismic site response analysis. The ground motion has been simulated for Allahabad fault using stochastic finite fault model for stress drop ranges from ~70 bar to ~200 bars. Simulation results show the Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) value of 0.026 g and 0.085 g at 70 and 200 bars stress drops, respectively. Site response results reveal that Indian Standard IS: 1893-2002 underestimates the PGA at higher stress drop compared to the estimated spectral acceleration values. Further, the lower stress drop can give a higher mean spectral acceleration at a long-period. Contour plot of surface-level PGA, low and high period spectral acceleration with response spectra for Allahabad city shows the variation with stress drop.