Correlation between S-wave Velocities and Building Damage Distribution in Bolu (Turkey) During the 1999 Düzce Earthquake

The ‘Düzce Earthquake’ of magnitude Mw= 7.2 took place on 12th November 1999 in the northeast of Turkey. Besides the effect of earthquake parameters such as epicentre distance, magnitude, duration, source mechanism and frequency content of earthquake waves, this large earthquake indicated the importance of the local soil conditions on building damage especially for incorrectly designed and improperly constructed structures.

In order to examine the connection between damage and the local subsoil condition, the two-dimensional inversion of shear-wave refraction arrival times performed on 149 profiles having a total length of 10370 meters. A strong correlation was found between the local shear-wave velocity and building damage distributions that also comparable with the geology of the studied area. The consistency between seismic velocities and building damages shows the importance of seismic refraction survey to estimate the local site effects that extracted from the transmission properties of shear waves.