From the point of view of structural engineering, a scale of evaluating intensity of earthquake motions is desirable to represent exactly what degree the earthquake motions cause damage to structures. Usually, as this kind of scale, maximum magnitude of acceleration and response spectrum are used, but there were several cases in which little damage to structures are inconsistent with large value of maximum magnitude of acceleration and response spectrum, For example, maximum magnitude of acceleration of the earthquake motions recorded at Kushiro in 1962 is 513 gal, and its response spectrum shows remarkable peak at T=0.33 second (Fig.2), that is, 2.2g for 5 percents damping and 4.8g for 1 percent damping. But little structures suffered damage. Then authors proposed to evaluate intensity of earthquake motions by means of another kind of scale, that is, damage ratio of wooden buildings due to earthquake motions. Damage to a wooden building is defined by elasto-plastic response of one mass system due to earthquake motions, and damage ratio is the total of damage to each group of structures (the structures of a group are different in the period from those of other groups), and is represented by idealised normal distribution curve in relation to maximum magnitude of acceleration of earthquake motions. Here, eartquake motions are used by modifying geometrically the acceleration amplitudes of the of the recorded earthquake motins, so the fhe frequency characteristics are not changed. By this scale, the intensity of the earthquake motions whose response spectrum has a remarkable peak, for instance, the above-mentioned earthquake motions at Kushiro, is not so large even for structure of the peak period, and is rather small for structure of other period. On the other hand, the intensity of the earthquake motions whose response spectrum has several peaks is generally large.
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