Gamage, Prasanna (2015) Earthquake Ground Motion Models for Sri Lanka. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

At present (in 2014), Sri Lanka does not have an established earthquake code of practice. Current design practice in Sri Lanka is to adopt values from other analogous codes of low to moderate seismicity. This has raised significant concerns amongst practitioners, academics and the general community. The tsunami that caused huge devastation in Sri Lanka in 2004 has also been a major driver in increasing the awareness of earthquake risks. However, to develop seismic codes of practice, an understanding of seismic hazard and wave attenuation characteristics of the region is essential. Since the hazard and attenuation are dependent on regional and local influences, many experts (Atkinson, 2004a, Chandler et al, 2001) recommend every region to develop their own attenuation and hazard models in order to provide reliable estimates of seismic hazard and risk. As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, initial work on hazard estimation has been undertaken by some researchers (Fernando and Kulasinghe, 1986; Abayakoon, 1996; Uduweriya et al, 2013). However, reliable attenuation models have not been developed. Hence the adaptation of provisions from other codes or regions may not be fully appropriate. Even the direct application of existing attenuation models in the literature needs investigation. In order to address these existing knowledge gaps and to develop reliable response spectrum models for future code of practice, a research program has been undertaken at Victoria University. In this thesis, local and regional characteristics influencing seismic hazard in the region have been systematically investigated and attenuation models have been developed. Seismological parameters derived in this process have been incorporated into stochastic modeling techniques to develop representative ground motions. These are validated based on comparisons with the recorded ground motions in the region, thus confirming the robustness of the developed models and parameters. This thesis presents an estimate of seismic hazard and response spectra (on rock) for the entire country which addresses the future needs of seismic design in the country.

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