Program: Collaborative Research for Common Regional Issues (CRC)

Field: Natural Disaster

Principal Investigator: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Myo Thant

Sending University: University of Yangon (UY)

Japanese Co-Investigator: Prof. Dr. Hiroshi KAWASE

Japanese University: Kyoto University

Year: 2013

Abstract:

The probabilistic seismic hazard assessment is carried out for Yangon City, Yangon Region, Myanmar, since Yangon is the most populated and major city of Myanmar. It is also the acient city of Myanmar. We used the classical method of Cornell (1976), probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA). In this research it includes 4 steps: 1) Seismic sources identification, 2) Estimation of seismic sources parameters, 3) Site investigation based on the borehole data, lab data and microtremor HV spectral ratio methods, and 4) Calculating the seismic hazards.
The major outcomes of this research project are the information of seismic sources that can contribute the seismic hazards on Yangon City, such as maximum earthquake magnitude, spatial and temporal occurrences of the earthquake potentials, etc., the sub-surface structure of Yangon City such soil profiles of certain townships/sites, the contour map of average shear wave velocity to the upper 30 m, Vs30, etc., and finally the seismic hazard maps. The seismic hazard assessment is carried out by using PSHA for 10% and 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years (475 and 2475 years recurrence interval) and the seismic hazards are represented in terms of peak ground acceleration (PGA) in g, spectral acceleration (SA) in g at the natural periods of 0.2 s and 1.0 s, and peak ground velocity (PGV) in cm/s.
All of these results would be very useful for city development plan, seismic resistance designing for the new building construction, and seismic preparedness programs, etc. Extended to other societies in Myanmar such as Myanmar Earthquake Committee (MEC), Myanmar Geosciences Society, and other international universities such as Kasarsat University, Thailand, and Nan Yang Technological University, Singapore, and some private construction companies. 1) the capacity development for research assistants, 2) strengthened the international collaboration among ASEAN universities and Japanese supporting universities. 1) Disaster Mitigation Plan especially for Earthquake, 2) application of the seismic hazard maps for future plan especially for industrial zones, 3) Seismic Retrofitting plan for the existing building