Erol Kalkan

Effects of fling step and forward directivity on seismic response of buildings

This paper investigates the consequences of well-known characteristics of near-fault ground motions on the seismic response of steel moment frames. Additionally, idealized pulses are utilized in a separate study to gain further insight into the effects of high-amplitude pulses on structural demands. Simple input pulses were also synthesized to simulate artificial fling-step effects in ground motions originally having forward directivity. Findings from the study reveal that median maximum demands and the dispersion in the peak values were higher for near-fault records than far-fault motions. The arrival of the velocity pulse in a near-fault record causes the structure to dissipate considerable input energy in relatively few plastic cycles, whereas cumulative effects from increased cyclic demands are more pronounced in far-fault records. For pulse-type input, the maximum demand is a function of the ratio of the pulse period to the fundamental period of the structure. Records with fling effects were found to excite systems primarily in their fundamental mode while waveforms with forward directivity in the absence of fling caused higher modes to be activated. It is concluded that the acceleration and velocity spectra, when examined collectively, can be utilized to reasonably assess the damage potential of near-fault records.

Site-Dependent Spectra Derived from Ground Motion Records in Turkey

The current spectral shapes in the Turkish Seismic Code (TSC) are based on broadly described geological conditions, ignoring fault distance or magnitude dependencies on spectral ordinates. To address this deficiency, a data set created from a suite of 112 strong ground motion records from 57 earthquakes that occurred between 1976 and 2003 has been used to develop horizontal attenuation relationships for Turkey. This way it is possible to construct hazard-consistent design spectra for any national seismic region. The results are compared with the site-dependent spectral shapes of the Uniform Building Code (UBC) and the current TSC. It is shown that corner periods are consistent with those of UBC. TSC yields wider constant spectral acceleration plateau. Design spectra in both of these documents are conservative if the ground motion library that we used in deriving the spectral shapes is taken as representative. The results of this study enable site-distance–magnitude-specific design spectra suitable as a tool both for deterministic (scenario earthquakes) and probabilistic seismic hazard assessments.

Modal-Pushover-Based Ground-Motion Scaling Procedure

Earthquake engineering is increasingly using nonlinear response history analysis (RHA) to demonstrate the performance of structures. This rigorous method of analysis requires selection and scaling of ground motions appropriate to design hazard levels. This paper presents a modal-pushover-based scaling (MPS) procedure to scale ground motions for use in a nonlinear RHA of buildings. In the MPS method, the ground motions are scaled to match to a specified tolerance, a target value of the inelastic deformation of the first-mode inelastic single-degree-of-freedom (SDF) system whose properties are determined by the first-mode pushover analysis. Appropriate for first-mode dominated structures, this approach is extended for structures with significant contributions of higher modes by considering elastic deformation of second-mode SDF systems in selecting a subset of the scaled ground motions. Based on results presented for three actual buildings—4, 6, and 13-story—the accuracy and efficiency of the MPS procedure ...

Recorded Motions of the 6 April 2009 Mw 6.3 L'Aquila, Italy, Earthquake and Implications for Building Structural Damage: Overview

The normal-faulting earthquake of 6 April 2009 in the Abruzzo Region of central Italy caused heavy losses of life and substantial damage to centuries-old buildings of significant cultural importance and to modern reinforced-concrete-framed buildings with hollow masonry infill walls. Although structural deficiencies were significant and widespread, the study of the characteristics of strong motion data from the heavily affected area indicated that the short duration of strong shaking may have spared many more damaged buildings from collapsing. It is recognized that, with this caveat of short-duration shaking, the infill walls may have played a very important role in preventing further deterioration or collapse of many buildings. It is concluded that better new or retrofit construction practices that include reinforced-concrete shear walls may prove helpful in reducing risks in such seismic areas of Italy, other Mediterranean countries, and even in United States, where there are large inventories of deficient structures.

Relevance of Absolute and Relative Energy Content in Seismic Evaluation of Structures

A reassessment of input energy measures taking into consideration the characteristics of near fault ground motions is presented. The difference between absolute and relative energy input to structural systems is shown to be more significant for near-fault than far-fault records. In particular, the coherent velocity pulse contained in near-fault records resulting from a distinctive acceleration pulse rather than a succession of high frequency acceleration spikes produces sudden energy demand in the early phase of the response and is typically larger than the total energy accumulated at the end. Studies using idealized pulses indicate that input energy is a function of the shape and period of the velocity pulse. For spectral periods shorter than pulse period, greater absolute energy is input into the system rather than relative energy, while the reverse is true for spectral periods larger than the pulse period. The discrepancy between two energy definitions is initiated by the phase difference in ground velocity and system relative velocity, and it tends to be minimal as the pulse period approaches to system vibration period. The significance of these findings, based on linear SDOF simulations, is further investigated by examining the nonlinear seismic response of a group of realistic buildings subjected to near-fault recordings with and without apparent acceleration pulses. This study concludes that selection of appropriate energy measure for near-fault accelerograms should be based on the shape and period of dominant pulse in the record, and the vibration properties of the structural system.

Empirical Attenuation Equations for Vertical Ground Motion in Turkey

In the aftermath of two destructive urban earthquakes in 1999 in Turkey, empirical models of strong motion attenuation relationships that have been previously developed for North American and European earthquakes have been utilized in a number of national seismic hazard studies. However, comparison of empirical evidence and estimates present significant differences. For that reason, a data set created from a suite of 100 vertical strong ground motion records from 47 national earthquakes that occurred between 1976 and 2002 has been used to develop attenuation relationships for strong ground motion in Turkey. A consistent set of empirical attenuation relationships was derived for predicting vertical peak and pseudo-absolute vertical acceleration spectral ordinates in terms of magnitude, source-to-site distance, and local geological conditions. The study manifests the strong dependence of vertical to horizontal (V/H) acceleration ratio on spectral periods and relatively weaker dependence on site geology, magnitude, and distance. The V/H ratio is found to be particularly significant at the higher frequency end of the spectrum, reaching values as high as 0.9 at short distances on soil sites. The largest long-period spectral ratios are observed to occur on rock sites where they can reach values in excess of 0.5. These results raise misgivings concerning the practice of assigning the V/H ratio a standard value of two-thirds. Hence, nonconservatism of this value at short periods and its conservatism at long periods underline the need for its revision, at least for practice in Turkey.

How Many Records Should Be Used in an ASCE/SEI-7 Ground Motion Scaling Procedure?

U.S. national building codes refer to the ASCE/SEI-7 provisions for selecting and scaling ground motions for use in nonlinear response history analysis of structures. Because the limiting values for the number of records in the ASCE/SEI-7 are based on engineering experience, this study examines the required number of records statistically, such that the scaled records provide accurate, efficient, and consistent estimates of “true” structural responses. Based on elastic–perfectly plastic and bilinear single-degree-of-freedom systems, the ASCE/SEI-7 scaling procedure is applied to 480 sets of ground motions; the number of records in these sets varies from three to ten. As compared to benchmark responses, it is demonstrated that the ASCE/SEI-7 scaling procedure is conservative if fewer than seven ground motions are employed. Utilizing seven or more randomly selected records provides more accurate estimate of the responses. Selecting records based on their spectral shape and design spectral acceleration increases the accuracy and efficiency of the procedure.

Effective Cyclic Energy as a Measure of Seismic Demand

Structural damage during strong ground shaking is associated with both the seismic input energy and the ability of structural components to dissipate energy through viscous damping and inelastic cyclic response. The correlation of the damage potential of ground motions with seismic energy demand is an important element in developing energy-based design methodologies. This article proposes a new measure of the severity of ground motions by introducing the concept of effective cyclic energy (ECE) defined as the peak-to-peak energy demand (sum of hysteretic and damping energies) imposed on a structure over an effective duration that is equivalent to the time between two zero-crossings of the “effective velocity pulse.” The proposed energy measure, which is dependent on the characteristics of the ground motion, is shown to be well correlated with peak seismic demand for a range of system parameters. The development of ECE also provides a basis for defining a non dimensional response index (γ eff ) to quantify the destructive potential of ground motions. The effectiveness of the new index parameter is validated using an extensive set of near-fault accelerograms and also compared to other ground motion severity indices. Finally, ECE demand of a MDOF system is estimated through modal-energy-decomposition of elastic and inelastic SDOF systems, and the concept of ECE spectrum is proposed to estimate the modal target energy demands for performance evaluation of structures.

Ground Motion Attenuation Model for Peak Horizontal Acceleration from Shallow Crustal Earthquakes

Spatial distribution of ground motion data of recent earthquakes unveiled some features of peak ground acceleration (PGA) attenuation with respect to closest distance to the fault (R) that current predictive models may not effectively capture. As such, PGA: (1) remains constant in the near-fault area, (2) may show an increase in amplitudes at a certain distance of about 3–10 km from the fault rupture, (3) attenuates with slope of R−1 and faster at farther distances, and (4) intensifies at certain distances due to basin effect (if basin is present). A new ground motion attenuation model is developed using a comprehensive set of ground motion data compiled from shallow crustal earthquakes. A novel feature of the predictive model is its new functional form structured on the transfer function of a single-degree-of-freedom oscillator whereby frequency square term is replaced with closest distance to the fault. We are proposing to fit ground motion amplitudes to a shape of a response function of a series (cascade) of filters, stacked separately one after another, instead of fitting an attenuation curve to a prescribed empirical expression. In this mathematical model each filter represents a separate physical effect.

Significance of Rotating Ground Motions on Behavior of Symmetric- and Asymmetric-Plan Structures: Part I. Single-Story Structures

The California Building Code requires at least two ground motion components for the three-dimensional (3-D) response history analysis (RHA) of structures. For near-fault sites, these records should be rotated to fault-normal/fault-parallel (FN/FP) directions, and two RHA analyses should be performed separately. This approach is assumed to lead to two sets of responses that envelope the range of possible responses over all non-redundant rotation angles. This assumption is examined here using 3-D computer models of single-story structures having symmetric and asymmetric plans subjected to a suite of bidirectional earthquake ground motions. The influence that the rotation angle has on several engineering demand parameters is investigated in linear and nonlinear domains to evaluate the use of the FN/FP directions, and the maximum direction (MD). The statistical evaluation suggests that RHAs should be conducted by rotating a set of records to the MD and FN/FP directions, and taking the maximum response values from these analyses as design values.