Site effect and expected seismic performance of buildings in Palestine-case study: Nablus city

The effects of local geology on ground-motion amplification and building damage were studied in Palestine-West Bank. Nakamura's method of microtremor analysis was applied in this study. The measurements showed significantly higher amplification in the frequency range of building vulnerability in different parts of Nablus city. This finding is consistent with the distribution of the earthquake damage grades in the urban areas struck by the I I February 2004 earthquake (ML = 5.2) with a focal depth of 17 km beneath the northeastern part of the Dead Sea Basin. Quite large differences in amplification between around I and 9 were computed between the eastern and western rims of the city. The downtown built in the central part of the city on soft clay, marl and valley deposits, whereas the northern and southern parts of urban areas in Nablus city lying on mountains consist of consolidated carbonates bedrock. In the central part of the city and at the rims, where the thickness of fluvial deposits and soft formations is about 15 m, amplifications between 6.74 and 8.67 for dominant natural period range of 0.8 - 1.1 sec were obtained. On the southern and northern mountains, which are located on limestone rocks covered with a thin layer of soil, the amplification in the same frequency range was low. Calculating the natural period of the existing common buildings (T-b) in the studied area (buildings with 10-12 stories), by using the dynamic analysis method. The values of T-b obtained were much closed to the site dominant natural period (Ts).The findings of this study indicate that the expected differences in damage grades for urban areas in Nablus city could be attributed to variations in the thickness and physical properties of Tertiary-Quaternary sediments, which appear to be rather heterogeneous.