Earthquake input energy prediction considering structural transient response

Abstract

Statistic and theory based methods are mainly used for predicting earthquake input energy. Statistical energy spectrum methods need abundant time-history simulation and are lack of solid theoretical basis, while theoretical prediction methods are derived from structural dynamics with necessary assumptions, so that these methods have relatively low accuracy resulted from their assumptions. In this work the comparison of simulation and analysis showed that, due to the influence of structural transient response ignored by existing theoretical prediction methods, more than 40% errors exist in prediction of earthquake input energy for structures with low damping ratio and long period. Based on Fourier decomposition, a new theoretical method was proposed for earthquake input energy prediction considering the influence of transient response. The comparative analysis show that the proposed method significantly improves prediction accuracy of earthquake input energy.