Ground Motion Selection for Engineering Applications

Ground Motion Selection for Engineering Applications

In practice, for new structures of major importance(rock-filled dams, nuclear power plants), complexity(soil-structure systems, irregular buildings), inelasticity and geometrical nonlinearity(base-isolated structures), dynamic time-history analysis is very beneficial for obtaining inelastic structural responses that are close to reality. In the past, dynamic time-history analysis frequently used records from significant earthquakes, such as El Centro(1940), Kobe(1995), and Chi-Chi(1999), or used artificial records based on random vibration theory. During the last decade, however, due to experience of severe earthquakes and massive earthquake records, modern seismic codes prescribe general guidelines that input motions, either real or artificial, must be selected to represent regional seismicity and must conform to design earthquakes. This paper aims to use real earthquake records to establish magnitude-distance(M–R) bins for different site conditions, and to match these with target spectral shapes defined by ten corner periods(Tc). Comparisons of record spectra from M–R bins for different hazard sources, and a review of record spectra versus design spectra from the Taiwan Building Code are discussed. The results of applied ground motion selection for the Taiwan region are presented.