Earthquake Motions Using a New Data Processing Scheme

Abstract

The significant improvements in the reliability of ground motion and response spectrum estimates that arise from a new procedure for processing strong-motion earthquake signals using state-of-the-art filter design and implementation techniques are illustrated through a series of case studies. A comparison of results from an existing model, and the proposed model show significant differences in the ground motion and response spectrum characteristics for the same set of filter limits. Drifts in integrated velocity and displacement characteristics and theoretically incorrect asymptotic behavior of response spectrum curves arising out of the existing processing scheme have been eliminated. In addition to the importance of appropriately selecting a low-frequency limit for band-pass filtering the signals, this work demonstrates the sensitivity of the acceleration trace to the particular choice of a high-frequency limit.