TY - JOUR A1 - Bommer, Julian J. A1 - Abrahamson, Norman A. A1 - Strasser, F. O. A1 - Pecker, Alain A1 - Bard, Pierre-Yves A1 - Bungum, Hilmar A1 - Cotton, Fabrice Pierre A1 - Fäh, Donat A1 - Sabetta, F. A1 - Scherbaum, Frank A1 - Studer, Jost T1 - The challenge of defining upper bounds on earthquake ground motions Y1 - 2004 SN - 0895-0695 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Musson, R. M. W. A1 - Toro, G. R. A1 - Coppersmith, Kevin J. A1 - Bommer, Julian J. A1 - Deichmann, N. A1 - Bungum, Hilmar A1 - Cotton, Fabrice Pierre A1 - Scherbaum, Frank A1 - Slejko, Dario A1 - Abrahamson, Norman A. T1 - Evaluating hazard results for Switzerland and how not to do it : a discussion of "Problems in the application of the SSHAC probability method for assessing earthquake hazards at Swiss nuclear power plants" by J-U Klugel N2 - The PEGASOS project was a major international seismic hazard study, one of the largest ever conducted anywhere in the world, to assess seismic hazard at four nuclear power plant sites in Switzerland. Before the report of this project has become publicly available, a paper attacking both methodology and results has appeared. Since the general scientific readership may have difficulty in assessing this attack in the absence of the report being attacked, we supply a response in the present paper. The bulk of the attack, besides some misconceived arguments about the role of uncertainties in seismic hazard analysis, is carried by some exercises that purport to be validation exercises. In practice, they are no such thing; they are merely independent sets of hazard calculations based on varying assumptions and procedures, often rather questionable, which come up with various different answers which have no particular significance. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved Y1 - 2005 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Scherbaum, Frank A1 - Bommer, Julian J. A1 - Bungum, Hilmar A1 - Cotton, Fabrice Pierre A1 - Abrahamson, Norman A. T1 - Composite ground-motion models and logic trees: Methodology, sensitivities, and uncertainties N2 - Logic trees have become a popular tool in seismic hazard studies. Commonly, the models corresponding to the end branches of the complete logic tree in a probabalistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) are treated separately until the final calculation of the set of hazard curves. This comes at the price that information regarding sensitivities and uncertainties in the ground-motion sections of the logic tree are only obtainable after disaggregation. Furthermore, from this end-branch model perspective even the designers of the logic tree cannot directly tell what ground-motion scenarios most likely would result from their logic trees for a given earthquake at a particular distance, nor how uncertain these scenarios might be or how they would be affected by the choices of the hazard analyst. On the other hand, all this information is already implicitly present in the logic tree. Therefore, with the ground-motion perspective that we propose in the present article, we treat the ground-motion sections of a complete logic tree for seismic hazard as a single composite model representing the complete state-of-knowledge-and-belief of a particular analyst on ground motion in a particular target region. We implement this view by resampling the ground-motion models represented in the ground-motion sections of the logic tree by Monte Carlo simulation (separately for the median values and the sigma values) and then recombining the sets of simulated values in proportion to their logic-tree branch weights. The quantiles of this resampled composite model provide the hazard analyst and the decision maker with a simple, clear, and quantitative representation of the overall physical meaning of the ground-motion section of a logic tree and the accompanying epistemic uncertainty. Quantiles of the composite model also provide an easy way to analyze the sensitivities and uncertainties related to a given logic-tree model. We illustrate this for a composite ground- motion model for central Europe. Further potential fields of applications are seen wherever individual best estimates of ground motion have to be derived from a set of candidate models, for example, for hazard rnaps, sensitivity studies, or for modeling scenario earthquakes Y1 - 2005 SN - 0037-1106 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bommer, Julian J. A1 - Scherbaum, Frank A1 - Bungum, Hilmar A1 - Cotton, Fabrice Pierre A1 - Sabetta, F. A1 - Abrahamson, Norman A. T1 - On the use of logic trees for ground-motion prediction equations in seismic-hazard analysis N2 - Logic trees are widely used in probabilistic seismic hazard analysis as a tool to capture the epistemic uncertainty associated with the seismogenic sources and the ground-motion prediction models used in estimating the hazard. Combining two or more ground-motion relations within a logic tree will generally require several conversions to be made, because there are several definitions available for both the predicted ground-motion parameters and the explanatory parameters within the predictive ground-motion relations. Procedures for making conversions for each of these factors are presented, using a suite of predictive equations in current use for illustration. The sensitivity of the resulting ground-motion models to these conversions is shown to be pronounced for some of the parameters, especially the measure of source-to-site distance, highlighting the need to take into account any incompatibilities among the selected equations. Procedures are also presented for assigning weights to the branches in the ground-motion section of the logic tree in a transparent fashion, considering both intrinsic merits of the individual equations and their degree of applicability to the particular application Y1 - 2005 SN - 0037-1106 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Al Atik, Linda A1 - Abrahamson, Norman A. A1 - Bommer, Julian J. A1 - Scherbaum, Frank A1 - Cotton, Fabrice Pierre A1 - Kuehn, Nicolas T1 - The variability of ground-motion prediction models and its components Y1 - 2010 UR - http://srl.geoscienceworld.org/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.1785/gssrl.81.5.794 SN - 0895-0695 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bommer, Julian J. A1 - Douglas, John A1 - Scherbaum, Frank A1 - Cotton, Fabrice Pierre A1 - Bungum, Hilmar A1 - Faeh, Donat T1 - On the selection of ground-motion prediction equations for seismic hazard analysis Y1 - 2010 UR - http://srl.geoscienceworld.org/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.1785/gssrl.81.5.783 SN - 0895-0695 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Douglas, John A1 - Akkar, Sinan A1 - Ameri, Gabriele A1 - Bard, Pierre-Yves A1 - Bindi, Dino A1 - Bommer, Julian J. A1 - Bora, Sanjay Singh A1 - Cotton, Fabrice Pierre A1 - Derras, Boumediene A1 - Hermkes, Marcel A1 - Kuehn, Nicolas Martin A1 - Luzi, Lucia A1 - Massa, Marco A1 - Pacor, Francesca A1 - Riggelsen, Carsten A1 - Sandikkaya, M. Abdullah A1 - Scherbaum, Frank A1 - Stafford, Peter J. A1 - Traversa, Paola T1 - Comparisons among the five ground-motion models developed using RESORCE for the prediction of response spectral accelerations due to earthquakes in Europe and the Middle East JF - Bulletin of earthquake engineering : official publication of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering N2 - This article presents comparisons among the five ground-motion models described in other articles within this special issue, in terms of data selection criteria, characteristics of the models and predicted peak ground and response spectral accelerations. Comparisons are also made with predictions from the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) models to which the models presented here have similarities (e.g. a common master database has been used) but also differences (e.g. some models in this issue are nonparametric). As a result of the differing data selection criteria and derivation techniques the predicted median ground motions show considerable differences (up to a factor of two for certain scenarios), particularly for magnitudes and distances close to or beyond the range of the available observations. The predicted influence of style-of-faulting shows much variation among models whereas site amplification factors are more similar, with peak amplification at around 1s. These differences are greater than those among predictions from the NGA models. The models for aleatory variability (sigma), however, are similar and suggest that ground-motion variability from this region is slightly higher than that predicted by the NGA models, based primarily on data from California and Taiwan. KW - Strong-motion data KW - Ground-motion models KW - Ground-motion prediction equations KW - Style of faulting KW - Site amplification KW - Aleatory variability KW - Epistemic uncertainty KW - Europe KW - Middle East Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-013-9522-8 SN - 1570-761X SN - 1573-1456 VL - 12 IS - 1 SP - 341 EP - 358 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rodriguez-Marek, A. A1 - Rathje, E. M. A1 - Bommer, Julian J. A1 - Scherbaum, Frank A1 - Stafford, P. J. T1 - Application of single-station sigma and site-response characterization in a probabilistic Seismic-Hazard analysis for new uclear site JF - Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America N2 - Aleatory variability in ground-motion prediction, represented by the standard deviation (sigma) of a ground-motion prediction equation, exerts a very strong influence on the results of probabilistic seismic-hazard analysis (PSHA). This is especially so at the low annual exceedance frequencies considered for nuclear facilities; in these cases, even small reductions in sigma can have a marked effect on the hazard estimates. Proper separation and quantification of aleatory variability and epistemic uncertainty can lead to defensible reductions in sigma. One such approach is the single-station sigma concept, which removes that part of sigma corresponding to repeatable site-specific effects. However, the site-to-site component must then be constrained by site-specific measurements or else modeled as epistemic uncertainty and incorporated into the modeling of site effects. The practical application of the single-station sigma concept, including the characterization of the dynamic properties of the site and the incorporation of site-response effects into the hazard calculations, is illustrated for a PSHA conducted at a rock site under consideration for the potential construction of a nuclear power plant. Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1785/0120130196 SN - 0037-1106 SN - 1943-3573 VL - 104 IS - 4 SP - 1601 EP - 1619 PB - Seismological Society of America CY - Albany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bommer, Julian J. A1 - Coppersmith, Kevin J. A1 - Coppersmith, Ryan T. A1 - Hanson, Kathryn L. A1 - Mangongolo, Azangi A1 - Neveling, Johann A1 - Rathje, Ellen M. A1 - Rodriguez-Marek, Adrian A1 - Scherbaum, Frank A1 - Shelembe, Refilwe A1 - Stafford, Peter J. A1 - Strasser, Fleur O. T1 - A SSHAC Level 3 Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis for a New-Build Nuclear Site in South Africa JF - Earthquake spectra : the professional journal of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute N2 - A probabilistic seismic hazard analysis has been conducted for a potential nuclear power plant site on the coast of South Africa, a country of low-to-moderate seismicity. The hazard study was conducted as a SSHAC Level 3 process, the first application of this approach outside North America. Extensive geological investigations identified five fault sources with a non-zero probability of being seismogenic. Five area sources were defined for distributed seismicity, the least active being the host zone for which the low recurrence rates for earthquakes were substantiated through investigations of historical seismicity. Empirical ground-motion prediction equations were adjusted to a horizon within the bedrock at the site using kappa values inferred from weak-motion analyses. These adjusted models were then scaled to create new equations capturing the range of epistemic uncertainty in this region with no strong motion recordings. Surface motions were obtained by convolving the bedrock motions with site amplification functions calculated using measured shear-wave velocity profiles. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1193/060913EQS145M SN - 8755-2930 SN - 1944-8201 VL - 31 IS - 2 SP - 661 EP - 698 PB - Earthquake Engineering Research Institute CY - Oakland ER -