Active seismic and passive microtremor HVSR for assessing site effects in Jammu city, NW Himalaya, India—A case study

1-D shear wave velocity structure is important for site effect studies and geotechnical engineering, but it is quite difficult and expensive to derive from the conventional geophysical techniques. Active (MASW) and passive (microtremors, HVSR) methods were conducted at 30 sites in the frontal part of the Himalaya which is characterized by soft sediments and strong seismological effects. Shear wave velocity (Vs) in the range of ~ 238 m/s to ~ 450 m/s has been obtained from 30 m thick layer of quaternary sediments overlying Lower Miocene bed rock (Upper Siwalik Conglomerate) in Jammu city, NW Himalaya. The shear wave velocity (Vs) along with seismic input motion of Chamoli earthquake (mb 6.8) has been used to obtain site response spectrum. The response spectrum suggests five to seven times increase in peak ground acceleration for single or two storey buildings and by eight to twelve times increase in amplification ratio with respect to input ground motion. The amplification spectrum shows peak amplification of ~ 2 Hz–~ 3 Hz in the central part and ~ 1.75 Hz–2 Hz in the northern, southwestern and southeastern parts of the city. The advantage of microtremor HVSR is that it yields direct estimate of the fundamental frequency which is found to vary from ~ 1 Hz to ~ 3 Hz for same sites. Further, the 1-D velocity models obtained from ModelHVSR Matlab routine have been compared with the soil models prepared by derived using MASW. The comparison shows correlation between soil models for sites having high shallow impedance contrast between the overlying sediments and very stiff material (bedrock) underneath as than sites having less impedance contrast.

Research Highlights
► Simultaneous use of active MASW and passive HVSR techniques in Jammu city for site amplification.
► Computation of natural period of 30 m soil column at each site using response analysis.
► Comparison of natural period derived from response analysis and HVSR.
► 1-D and 2-D shear velocity models of each site showing lateral and vertical variation.
► Comparison of 1-D velocity model derived by MASW technique and modelHVSR.