S T G Raghukanth

This article presents site-specific probable seismic hazard of the Himachal Pradesh province, situated in a seismically active region of northwest Himalaya, using the ground motion relations presented in a companion article. Seismic recurrence parameters for all the documented probable sources are established from an updated earthquake catalogue. The contour maps of probable spectral acceleration at 0, 0.2, and 1 s (5% damping) are presented for 475 and 2475 years return periods. Also, the hazard curves and uniform hazard response spectrums are presented for all the important cities in this province. Results indicate that the present codal provision underestimates the seismic hazard at cities of Bilaspur, Shimla, Hamirpur, Chamba, Mandi, and Solan. In addition, regions near Bilaspur and Chamba exhibit higher hazard levels than what is reported in literature.

This article presents four regional site-specific ground motion relations developed for the state of Himachal Pradesh in northwest Himalaya, situated in a seismically active region. These relations are developed from synthetic free surface ground motion databases obtained from a calibrated stochastic seismological model considering the characteristic properties of this specific region. The adopted methodology incorporates the site effects characterised through active MASW tests conducted in 22 important cities. The estimated ground motion levels from the developed relations are found to be in reasonable agreement with the recorded data.