MatNERApor—A Matlab Package for Numerical Modeling of Nonlinear Response of Porous Saturated Soil Deposits to P- and SH-Waves Propagation

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the problem of numerical modeling of earthquake response of porous saturated soil deposits to seismic waves propagation. Site-specific earthquake response analysis is a necessary and important component of seismic hazard assessment. Accounting for the complex structure of porous saturated soils, i.e., the content in them, in addition to the solid matrix, pore water, gas mixture and ice, is especially important for the water areas in the zones of continuous or sparse permafrost, as well as the massive release of bubble gas from bottom sediments. The purpose of this study is to introduce an algorithm and its Matlab implementation for numerical modeling of the nonlinear response of porous saturated soil deposits to vertical P- and SH-waves propagation. The presented MatNERApor package consists of a set of Matlab scripts and functions. The package was tested and verified using the records of vertical seismic arrays of the Kik-net network. In addition, the records of local earthquakes obtained by ocean bottom seismographs in the Laptev Sea in 2019–2020 were used to demonstrate the effect of the water layer above the seabed sites on the reduction of vertical motions spectra. The results of the calculations showed good agreement with the data obtained from real seismic records, which justifies the correctness of the theoretical basis of the presented algorithm and its software implementation.

Keywords

• site-specific analysis
• geohazards
• seismic microzonation
• numerical modeling
• nonlinear earthquake response
• porous saturated soils