Static and Dynamic Properties of Soils in Catania City (Italy)

The analysis of the historical reports and previous research projects allowed us to describe high-level seismic risk scenarios for the city of Catania, located on the eastern coast of Sicily (Italy). The geotechnical zonation of the subsoil of the city of Catania suggests a high seismic hazard added to a soil amplification of the ground motion. To this aim field and laboratory tests allowed the definition of a geotechnical characterisation in the city of Catania. For the site characterisation of soils deep site investigations have been undertaken. Borings and dynamic in situ tests have been performed in some selected test sites with the aim to evaluate the soil profiles of shear wave velocity and to retrieve undisturbed samples for laboratory tests. The testing programme consisted of standard classification tests, Oedometer tests, Direct shear tests, Resonant Column and Torsional shear tests. Two equations to draw the complete shear modulus degradation with strain level and the inverse variation of damping ratio with normalized shear modulus respectively have been also proposed. Shear wave velocity profiles experimentally obtained were compared with both in situ and laboratory tests.