Effects of Topographic Amplification Induced by a U-Shaped Canyon on Seismic Waves

The series solution of wave functions for 2D scattering and diffraction of plane SH (shear horizontal) waves induced by a U-shaped canyon is proposed herein to account for the topographic effect of such a canyon. The wave function expansion method has been frequently employed to study the topographic effect because it can reveal the physics of the wave scattering and can test the accuracy of other methods. Through a new domain decomposition strategy, the half-space having a U-shaped canyon is divided into three subregions. Hence, we defined three cylindrical coordi-nate systems. In each coordinate system, the wave field satisfying the Helmholtz equa-tion was represented by means of the separation of variables method, in terms of the series of both Bessel functions and Hankel functions with unknown complex coeffi-cients. Then three wave fields are all represented in the same coordinate system using the Graf addition theorem. The unknown coefficients are solved by satisfying the con-tinuity conditions of the auxiliary boundary and the traction-free boundary conditions on the bottom of the canyon. To show the effects of symmetrical and nonsymmetrical U-shaped canyons on the surface ground motion, a parametric analysis is carried out in the frequency domain. Surface and subsurface transient responses in the time do-main demonstrate the phenomenon of wave propagating and scattering. It is found that a zone of amplification can obviously take place at the bottom of a U-shaped canyon with nearly vertical walls.