Analyzing the Sufficiency of Alternative Scalar and Vector Intensity Measures of Ground Shaking Based on Information Theory
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 138, Issue 3
Abstract
The seismic risk assessment of a structure in performance-based design (PBD) may be significantly affected by the representation of ground motion uncertainty. In PBD, the uncertainty in the ground motion is often represented by a probabilistic description of a scalar parameter, or low-dimensional vector of parameters, known as the intensity measure (IM), rather than a full probabilistic description of the ground motion time history in terms of a stochastic model. In this work, a new procedure employing relative sufficiency measure is introduced on the basis of information theory concepts to quantify the suitability of one IM relative to another in the representation of ground motion uncertainty. On the basis of this relative sufficiency measure, several alternative scalar- and vector-valued IMs are compared in terms of the expected difference in information they provide about a predicted structural response parameter, namely, the seismically induced drift in an existing reinforced-concrete frame structure. It is concluded that the most informative of the eight considered IMs for predicting the nonlinear drift response are two scalar IMs and a vector IM that depend only on the spectral ordinates at the periods of the first two (small-amplitude) modes of vibration.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by the Earthquake Engineering Research Centers Program of the National Science Foundation under Award Number NSFEEC-9701568 through the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER). This support is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation. The first author also acknowledges the support from a George W. Housner Post-doctoral Fellowship in Civil Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 138 • Issue 3 • March 2012
Pages: 307 - 316
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 22, 2011
Accepted: Aug 11, 2011
Published online: Aug 13, 2011
Published in print: Mar 1, 2012
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