Evaluation of Supplementary Constraints on Dispersion of EDPs Using Real Ground Motion Record Sets

Nonlinear dynamic analysis is the most advanced structural analysis method, and it has become very widespread method to determine structural responses for seismic design or assessment. On the other hand, structural responses strongly rely on the selection of earthquake records for nonlinear dynamic analysis. In this study, several earthquake record selection strategies which impose different compatibility levels between the spectral shape of earthquake records and target spectrum are introduced. Eurocode-8 procedure is considered as reference record selection strategy. Four main engineering demand parameters (EDPs): maximum floor acceleration, global drift ratio, inter-story drift ratio and residual global drift ratio, are used to investigate the superiority of presented strategies. Nonlinear dynamic analyses of three representative low- and mid-rise RC frames are carried out to obtain the EDPs. The central tendency and dispersion of the EDPs are utilized to investigate efficiency of the strategies. Results indicated that the EDPs are correlated with dispersion of spectral accelerations. Numerical evaluations have also highlighted that the presented strategies are capable of providing consistent mean structural responses. It is thought that the presented strategies can be used to select real earthquake records for nonlinear dynamic analysis of structures.