This article investigates the effects of the nonlinear behavior of soils on site response, through various earthquake recordings from the KiK-net database in Japan. This network is composed of more than 688 surface–borehole instruments, from which a characterization of the shear- and compressive-wave velocity profiles down to the borehole depth is available. We selected events with a peak ground acceleration (PGA) at the downhole station of <10 cm=s2 in order to characterize the linear soil behavior by computing the surface to downhole spectral ratios at each site. Modifications of site-response curves computed with strong events (PGA >50 cm=s2) compared to the linear characterization are supposed to be caused by nonlinear soil behavior. To describe the effects of soil nonlinear behavior on site response per event, we propose the percentage of modification (either amplification or deamplification) of the site-response curve compared to the linear evaluation (PNLev, percentage of nonlinearity) and the associated shift frequency (Shev). These parameters are used to estimate the probability that nonlinear site response is significantly different that the linear counterpart. We find that, regardless the site, this probability is important even for low input-motion PGA (values equal to or larger than 30 cm=s2 at downhole sensor). This indicates that nonlinear soil behavior must be taken into account in site-response evaluation for moderate to strong motion. In addition, for 54 sites of the KiK-net database that have recorded at least two strong events (PGA at the downhole station >50 cm=s2), we define four additional parameters that characterize the effects of soil nonlinear behavior on site responses for each site: (1) a PGA threshold (PGAth), defined as the PGA value for which PNLev is higher than 10%; (2) a site-specific PNL for a PGA of 50 cm=s2 (PNLsite); (3) a site-specific shift of the predominant frequency for a PGA of 50 cm=s2 (Shsite); and (4) a frequency from which we observe deamplification between nonlinear and linear site responses (fNL). We observe that nonlinear soil behavior can increase the amplification at frequencies below fNL.We find that fNL lies in between the fundamental and the predominant resonance frequencies of the site response and that sites having VS contrast close to the surface trigger nonlinear behavior at a lower input-motion PGA threshold. These results suggest that nonlinear behavior occurs mostly in the superficial soil layers. Furthermore, by investigating the nonlinear behavior of soils on earthquake horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios at the surface, we find that they can give satisfactory results (equivalent to the analysis of borehole site responses) for the evaluation of the fNL frequency and shift frequency (Shsite), which indicates that part of the results obtained in this study can be extended to other databases without downhole sensors

PREdiction of NOn-LINear soil behavior (PRENOLIN) is an international benchmark aiming to test multiple numerical simulation codes that are capable of predicting nonlinear seismic site response with various constitutive models. One of the objectives of this project is the assessment of the uncertainties associated with nonlinear simulation of 1D site effects. A first verification phase (i.e., comparison between numerical codes on simple idealistic cases) will be followed by a validation phase, comparing the predictions of such numerical estimations with actual strongmotion recordings obtained at well-known sites. The benchmark presently involves 21 teams and 23 different computational codes.We present here the main results of the verification phase dealing with simple cases. Three different idealized soil profiles were tested over a wide range of shear strains with different input motions and different boundary conditions at the sediment/bedrock interface. A first iteration focusing on the elastic and viscoelastic cases was proved to be useful to ensure a common understanding and to identify numerical issues before pursuing the nonlinear modeling. Besides minor mistakes in the implementation of input parameters and output units, the initial discrepancies between the numerical results can be attributed to (1) different understanding of the expression "input motion" in different communities, and (2) different implementations of material damping and possible numerical energy dissipation. The second round of computations thus allowed a convergence of all teams to the Haskell-Thomson analytical solution in elastic and viscoelastic cases. For nonlinear computations, we investigate the epistemic uncertainties related only to wave propagation modeling using different nonlinear constitutive models. Such epistemic uncertainties are shown to increase with the strain level and to reach values around 0.2 (log 10 scale) for a peak ground acceleration of 5 m=s 2 at the base of the soil column, which may be reduced by almost 50% when the various constitutive models used the same shear strength and damping implementation.

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We analyzed the acceleration time histories recorded by the K-NET and KiK-net stations of the M w 9 Tohoku Earthquake in order to investigate site response issues related to near-source effects. Time-frequency analysis of K-NET stations in the Miyagi prefecture, closest to the rupture area, show that sites having a V s30 < 400 m/s present a combination of deamplification at frequencies higher than 5 to 10 Hz and cyclic mobility (high acceleration peaks riding over a low frequency carrier). This suggests strong nonlinear site response at these stations. Furthermore, using KiK-net data we are able to compute borehole transfer functions from the mainshock and events having small PGA values from the local dataset. The ratio between weak-motion and strong-motion borehole transfer functions constitutes an indicator of nonlinear site response. This ratio reveals strong dependence on V s30 and shows that widespread nonlinear behavior took place during this large earthquake.

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