Selection of Near-Fault Pulse Motions
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 140, Issue 7
Abstract
Earthquake ground motions in the near-fault region frequently have intense, double-sided pulses in the velocity-time series that can be very damaging to structures. Many of these velocity pulses are attributed to the effects of forward directivity, which occurs when a fault ruptures toward a site. However, pulses are not always observed in the forward directivity region, and some pulses cannot be explained by forward directivity. The relative contribution of pulse-type motions to the overall seismic hazard should be considered when selecting records in a suite of design ground motions for a site in the near-fault region. This study uses a new scheme to classify records from an enhanced database of records from shallow crustal earthquakes that have the closest site-to-source distances less than 30 km with moment magnitudes greater than 6.0 as either pulse or nonpulse motions. The resulting database of 673 records from 52 earthquakes contains 141 pulses, including 74 explained well by forward directivity. Logistic regression is used to develop a simple model to estimate the proportion of pulse motions as a function of closest site-to-source distance and epsilon of the seismic hazard. The resulting relationship can be used to estimate the number of pulse-type motions that should be included within a suite of ground motions to represent the proper contribution of pulse motions to the seismic hazard. Guidance is also provided for selecting pulse records.
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Acknowledgments
Financial support was provided primarily by the ATC-82 project through an Applied Technology Council (ATC)–Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE) joint venture sponsored by NIST/National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP). Additional funding was provided from a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. The use of the NGA-West2 ground motion database through the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) is appreciated. The authors also thank A. L. Acevedo-Cabrera for her initial contributions to the project. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NIST or National Science Foundation.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 140 • Issue 7 • July 2014
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 2, 2013
Accepted: Feb 25, 2014
Published online: Mar 27, 2014
Published in print: Jul 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Aug 27, 2014
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