The SCEC Broadband Platform: Open-Source Software for Strong Ground Motion Simulation and Validation

Fabio Silva, Philip J. Maechling, & Christine A. Goulet

Published August 15, 2019, SCEC Contribution #9751, 2019 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #013

The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) Broadband Platform (BBP) is a collection of contributed open-source scientific software modules that can simulate broadband (0-20+ Hz) ground motions for earthquakes at regional scales. The BBP is a research tool that uses earthquake rupture and wave propagation modeling software to simulate ground motions from earthquakes.

The BBP scientific software modules implement kinematic rupture generation, low- and high-frequency seismogram synthesis using 3D wave propagation through 1D layered velocity structures, a site-effects module, several ground motion intensity measure calculations, and various ground motion goodness-of-fit tools. These complex scientific codes have been integrated into a software system that provides user-defined, repeatable calculation of ground-motion seismograms, using alternative simulation methods, and software utilities to generate tables, plots, and maps. The BBP has been developed over the last eight years in a collaborative project involving geoscientists, earthquake engineers, including graduate students, researchers and practitioners, and the SCEC research computing group.

The SCEC BBP software can be compiled and run on recent Linux systems with GNU compilers. The Broadband Platform continues to evolve, and its most recent is version 19.4, released in May 2019. The release include seven simulation methods, eight simulation regions covering California, Japan, Central and Eastern North America, and the ability to compare simulation results against empirical ground motion models. The newest features include the ability to simulate multi-segment ruptures using several simulation methods. And, in addition to a new simulation method, the BBP now includes improvements to several existing ground motion simulation methods and revised Green’s functions for all the simulation regions. In this release, the site response module is integrated with all simulation methods and can also be used for comparing simulated data against historical earthquakes.

Citation
Silva, F., Maechling, P. J., & Goulet, C. A. (2019, 08). The SCEC Broadband Platform: Open-Source Software for Strong Ground Motion Simulation and Validation. Poster Presentation at 2019 SCEC Annual Meeting.

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