Engineering Characteristics of Strong Motion Records of the Riviere-du-Loup Earthquake in Quebec, Canada

摘要

The Riviere-du-Loup earthquake occurred on March 6, 2005 in Quebec, and it is one of the largest earthquakes in eastern Canada since 1988. The Nuttli magnitude (m_N) of the earthquake was 5.4, and the moment magnitude (M_w) was 4.7. Ground motions caused by the earthquake were recorded at 22 strong motion stations. In total, 66 components were recorded during the earthquake. The records were obtained at epicentral distances ranging from 6 km to 500 km. These records are very useful for understanding the characteristics of earthquake ground motions in eastern Canada.This paper presents results from the analysis of the 66 processed records of the Riviere-du-Loup earthquake. The engineering parameters considered in this study include peak ground motions (acceleration, velocity, and displacement) and response spectra of the recorded motions. The response spectra of the records were compared with the design spectra for different soil conditions prescribed by the 2010 edition of the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC 2010) for Riviere-du-Loup. In addition, the attenuation relationships for peak ground acceleration, and spectral accelerations at periods of 0.2 s and 1.0 s, based on the recorded data, were compared with those currently used in the seismic hazard analysis for eastern Canada. The results from the study show that the peak ground motions and the response spectra of the Riviere-du-Loup earthquake records are significantly smaller than those predicated by the attenuation relations used for eastern Canada.