A new window has been added to the Hazard Assessment app (Figure 1). The sensitivity analysis aims to quantify the effect of the variation of the input parameters on the hazard. These analyses can also help the user to determine the optimal settings to use for many of the parameters. This window allows the user to vary only one parameter at the time.
A few new features have been added to the Hazard Assessment application, aiming to improve usability, understanding and investigation. The first addition is a chart in the hazard setup window to indicate the current date range settings. Usually the date range for calculating b-value will be a lot longer than for calculating event rate. Hopefully the chart will be a handy visual aid to help you keep your bearings when setting the hazard analysis periods.
Two new charts have been added to the General Analysis application related to assessing hazard with the frequency-magnitude relationship.
The isosurfaces for b-value have been upgraded in the latest root. There is now much more control over the isosurface levels. Up to 5 iso's can be plotted for user defined ranges.
The grid-based hazard calculations in the Hazard Assessment app were discussed in a previous post. The Iso View describes the hazard at all locations within the mine but when you are considering the seismic risk for a particular work area, large events and strong ground motions may come from multiple sources. The Excavation View estimates the seismic hazard associated with working areas (minode locations) in a few different ways as described below.
The strong ground motion (SGM) relationship is used to calculate the peak particle velocity (PPV) generated by a seismic event. You may also hear this referred to as a ground motion prediction equation (GMPE), but only the maximum velocity is estimated, i.e. the strong ground motion, rather than the full, complex wave motion.
Probabilistic seismic hazard calculations are dependent on the number of events (N) and the b-value. But which has more effect on the hazard result? The chart below shows how seismic hazard varies with b-value for N = 1,000, N = 10,000 and N = 100,000.
The value is sometimes used as a measure of seismic hazard but there are some common mistakes made with this analysis and interpretation.