Gascot-Lozada, Ramón L.

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    Influence of spectrum compatible earthquake records on the inelastic behavior of reinforced concrete structures
    (2013) Gascot-Lozada, Ramón L.; Montejo-Valencia, Luis A.; College of Engineering; Suárez-Colche, Luis E.; López-Rodríguez, Ricardo R.; Department of Civil Engineering; Canals-Silander, Miguel F.
    Seismic designed structures are expected to resist minor level earthquakes without significant damage as well as major level earthquakes without collapse. Over the last years the number of seismic instrumentation networks has increased over highly active seismic regions raising considerably the number of strong motion records available. Despite the increase in the number of available strong motion records, artificial spectrum compatible records are still widely used for seismic design/assessment in zones where the number of available records is scarce and/or to reduce the number of analysis required while complying with design codes requirements. There are different methodologies used to generate spectrum compatible records and three of them are evaluated in this report: wavelet based modification of seed records, seed record adjustment based on the Continuous Wavelet Transform and synthetic record generation in the frequency domain. Different sets of compatible records are generated using each of these methodologies. The compatible records are evaluated based on the level of match with the target spectrum and its strong motion characteristics. The effect on the nonlinear seismic response is evaluated using these records as input motions for nonlinear time history analyses of a typical RC bridge bent column model developed and calibrated using a distributed plasticity fiber based finite element approach. It was found that the three methodologies are capable of generating compatible records with an acceptable level of matching the characteristics. However, the records generated using the frequency domain approach exhibit unrealistic strong motion characteristics and a tendency to induce less inelastic demand in the structures. In the case of methodologies based on modification of actual earthquake records it was found that when the seed records are selected based on their initial compatibility with the target spectrum, the resultant compatible record not only retains better the original characteristic of the records but the variability in the structural response is reduced.