ShakyGround in 5 steps is a short guide to help you understanding wich are the data required from ShakyGround and wich kind of use you can make of the program.

Step1 - Step2- Step3 - Step4 - Step5

Step 1. Identify yourself - I belong to:

Governmental Authority
Engineering / Geoconsulting firm
Civil Protection Authority
Insurance
Educational / University

Step 2. Collect geological data

Start collecting geological information about the site(s) you want to investigate. The information is important for ShakyGround to propagate the seismic waves in the surface. A detailed information about thicknesses, shear wave velocity and density is important considering the fact that local geology greatly influences site response. For every site you need to define the coordinates: in this way it will be very easy to produce shaky ground maps.

Step 3. Define an input Earthquake

Define your input earthquake. You need to know few parameters as the magintude and the epicentral coordinates of the earthquake. You can select quakes really happened in your zone or quakes you think could happen.

Step 4. Run a simulation

After defining these parameters what you have to do is Run a simulation. Here is a results example:

Response Spectra and related values.

Comparison with principal standard seismic codes (EC8, Japanese code, US-Building Code)

Synthetic traces (acceleration, speed, displacement)

Shaking Maps based on real earthquakes

Step 5. Use ShakyGround results

Governmental authorities (local, regional and national) concerned with problems of seismic zoning, land use planning and emergency planning.

The governmental authorities may use ShakyGround in order to identify shaky sites in advance. The characteristics of ShakyGround also allow to discern which type of structures will be particularly at risk. Users are enabled to adjust their land use planning. ShakyGround has been designed for treating large seismic zoning projects where many sites and earthquake scenarios have to be considered.

Companies working in civil engineering, industrial plant design, consulting on geological and geophysical topics.

This group uses ShakyGround in order to obtain numerical information concerning the loading which constructions undergo during an earthquake. They profit from the fact that the estimation of seismic loading accounts for the very specific conditions of the place where the construction is going to be set up. They may also use ShakyGround synthetic traces as seismic input in their own numerical calculations.

Authorities of Civil Protection

The requests of these authorities resembles to the ones of the governmental authorities. The identification of shaky sites in advance allows the mapping of zones where the damages due to a future earthquake will be particularly high. People in these areas will probably need more help than others, on the other hand these zones must be avoided for construction and deployment of first aid.

Insurance Companies

Companies working in earthquake insurance are given the possibility of ranking indivdual sites with respect to the expected effect in various earthquake scenarios. The results of seismic zoning performed with ShakyGround helps insurances to develop their marketing policies for the specific area.

Educational institutions

ShakyGround is very user-friendly and follows sound scientific concepts of strong ground motion estimation. The layout of the software allows to discuss a large number of case studies and to analyze the various factors contributing to the problem of earthquake damage. An ideal tool for training courses for geophysicists , geologists, engineers…