Study and Modeling of Near-Fault Strong Motions Occurring Frequently of a Series of Active Crustal Earthquakes

Abstract

Keeping in mind for application to the performance-based design of buildings, near-fault strong motions which were recorded very frequently during active series of inland crustal earthquakes are investigated using sorted and ranked pseudo velocity response spectra and ranked response spectral ratios which are newly defined in this paper. In a near-fault region, it is confirmed that the almost largest responses of a structure might be generated twice or more times during a series of earthquakes. It is also confirmed that in shorter-period structures large responses occur much more times than the ones in longer-period structures during the series of earthquakes. Finally, ranked response spectral ratios of near-fault earthquake ground motions which could be considered in structural design are also proposed. The effects of strong motion repetition on building responses could be considered multiplying the response spectra of the design earthquake motions or the target spectra by the proposed ranked response spectral ratios.