Determination of GMPE functional form for an active region with limited strong motion data: application to the Himalayan region

Advancement in the seismic networks results in formulation of different functional forms for developing any new ground motion prediction equation (GMPE) for a region. Till date, various guidelines and tools are available for selecting a suitable GMPE for any seismic study area. However, these methods are efficient in quantifying the GMPE but not for determining a proper functional form and capturing the epistemic uncertainty associated with selection of GMPE. In this study, the compatibility of the recent available functional forms for the active region is tested for distance and magnitude scaling. Analysis is carried out by determining the residuals using the recorded and the predicted spectral acceleration values at different periods. Mixed effect regressions are performed on the calculated residuals for determining the intra- and interevent residuals. Additionally, spatial correlation is used in mixed effect regression by changing its likelihood function. Distance scaling and magnitude scaling are respectively examined by studying the trends of intraevent residuals with distance and the trend of the event term with magnitude. Further, these trends are statistically studied for a respective functional form of a ground motion. Additionally, genetic algorithm and Monte Carlo method are used respectively for calculating the hinge point and standard error for magnitude and distance scaling for a newly determined functional form. The whole procedure is applied and tested for the available strong motion data for the Himalayan region. The functional form used for testing are five Himalayan GMPEs, five GMPEs developed under NGA-West 2 project, two from Pan-European, and one from Japan region. It is observed that bilinear functional form with magnitude and distance hinged at 6.5 M (w) and 300 km respectively is suitable for the Himalayan region. Finally, a new regression coefficient for peak ground acceleration for a suitable functional form that governs the attenuation characteristic of the Himalayan region is derived