Study on the severest real ground motion for seismic design and analysis

Abstract

How to select the adequate real strong earthquake ground motion for seismic analysis and design of structures is an essential problem in earthquake engineering research and practice. In the paper the concept of the severest design ground motion is proposed and a method is developed for comparing the severity of the recorded strong ground motions. By using this method the severest earthquake ground motions are selected out as seismic inputs to the structures to be designed from a database that consists of more than five thousand significant strong ground motion records collected over the world. The selected severest ground motions are very likely to be able to drive the structures to their critical response and thereby result in the highest damage potential. It is noted that for different structures with different predominant natural periods and at different sites where structures are located the severest design ground motions are usually different. Finally, two examples are illustrated to demonstrate the rationality of the concept and the reliability of the selected design motion.