In code-based seismic design and assessment it is often allowed the use of real records as an input for nonlinear dynamic analysis. On the other hand, international seismic guidelines, concerning this issue, have been found hardly applicable by practitioners. This is related to both the difficulty in rationally relating the ground motions to the hazard at the site and the required selection criteria, which do not favor the use of real records, but rather various types of spectrum matching signals. To overcome some of these obstacles a software tool for code-based real records selection was developed. REXEL, freely available at the website of the Italian network of earthquake engineering university labs (http://www.reluis.it/index_eng.html), allows to search for suites of waveforms, currently from the European Strong-motion Database, compatible to reference spectra being either user-defined or automatically generated according to Eurocode 8 and the recently released new Italian seismic code. The selection reflects the provisions of the considered codes and others found to be important by recent research on the topic. In the paper, record selection criteria are briefly reviewed first, and then the algorithms implemented in the software are discussed. Finally, via some examples, it is shown how REXEL can effectively be a contribution to code-based real records selection for seismic structural analysis

The increasing interest in performance-based earthquake engineering has promoted research on the improvement of hazard-consistent seismic input definition and on advanced criteria for strong motion record selection to perform nonlinear time history analyses. Within the ongoing research activities to improve the representation of seismic actions and to develop tools as a support for engineering practice, this study addresses the selection of displacement-spectrum-compatible real ground motions, with special reference to Italy. This involved (1) the definition of specific target displacement spectra for Italian sites, constrained—both at long and short periods—by results of probabilistic seismic hazard analyses; (2) the compilation of a high-quality strong ground motion database; and (3) the development of a software tool for computer-aided displacement-based record selection. Application examples show that sets of unscaled, or lightly scaled, accelerograms with limited record-to-record spectral variability can also easily be obtained when a broadband spectral compatibility is required.

SummaryStochastic ground motion models produce synthetic time-histories by modulating a white noise sequence through functions that address spectral and temporal properties of the excitation. The resultant ground motions can be then used in simulation-based seismic risk assessment applications. This is established by relating the parameters of the aforementioned functions to earthquake and site characteristics through predictive relationships. An important concern related to the use of these models is the fact that through current approaches in selecting these predictive relationships, compatibility to the seismic hazard is not guaranteed. This work offers a computationally efficient framework for the modification of stochastic ground motion models to match target intensity measures (IMs) for a specific site and structure of interest. This is set as an optimization problem with a dual objective. The first objective minimizes the discrepancy between the target IMs and the predictions established through the stochastic ground motion model for a chosen earthquake scenario. The second objective constraints the deviation from the model characteristics suggested by existing predictive relationships, guaranteeing that the resultant ground motions not only match the target IMs but are also compatible with regional trends. A framework leveraging kriging surrogate modeling is formulated for performing the resultant multi-objective optimization, and different computational aspects related to this optimization are discussed in detail. The illustrative implementation shows that the proposed framework can provide ground motions with high compatibility to target IMs with small only deviation from existing predictive relationships and discusses approaches for selecting a final compromise between these two competing objectives. | INTRODUCTIONThe growing interest in performance-based earthquake engineering 1,2 and in simulation-based, seismic risk assessment approaches 3,4 has increased in the past decades the relevance of ground motion modeling techniques. These techniques describe the entire time-series of seismic excitations, providing a characterization appropriate for dynamic time-history analysis. UndoubtedlyThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The lack of empirical data regarding earthquake damage or losses has propelled the development of dozens of analytical methodologies for the derivation of fragility and vulnerability functions. Each method will naturally have its strengths and weaknesses, which will consequently affect the associated risk estimates. With the purpose of sharing knowledge on vulnerability modeling, identifying shortcomings in the existing methods, and recommending improvements to the current practice, a group of vulnerability experts met in Pavia (Italy) in April 2017. Critical topics related to the selection of ground motion records, modeling of complex real structures through simplified approaches, propagation of aleatory and epistemic uncertainties, and validation of vulnerability results were discussed, and suggestions were proposed to improve the reliability and accuracy in vulnerability modeling.

Earthquake early warning (EEW) is a relatively new strategy for reducing disaster risk and increasing resilience to seismic hazard in urban settings. EEW systems provide real-time information about ongoing earthquakes, enabling individuals, communities, governments, businesses and others located at distance to take timely action to reduce the probability of harm or loss before the earthquake-induced ground shaking reaches them. Examples of potential losses mitigated by EEW systems include injuries and infrastructure

The study presented in this paper addresses the issue of engineering validation of Graves and Pitarka's (2010) hybrid broadband ground motion simulation methodology with respect to some well-recorded historical events and considering the response of multiple degrees of freedom (MDoF) systems. Herein, validation encompasses detailed assessment of how similar is, for a given event, the seismic response due to comparable hybrid broadband simulated records and real records. In the first part of this study, in order to investigate the dynamic response of a wide range of buildings, MDoF structures are modeled as elastic continuum systems consisting of a combination of a flexural cantilever beam coupled with a shear cantilever beam. A number of such continuum systems are selected including the following: (1) 16 oscillation periods between 0.1 and 6???s; (2) three shear to flexural deformation ratios to represent respectively shear-wall structures, dual systems, and moment-resisting frames; and (3) two stiffness distributions along the height of the systems, that is, uniform and linear. Demand spectra in terms of generalized maximum interstory drift ratio (IDR) and peak floor acceleration (PFA) are derived using simulations and actual recordings for four historical earthquakes, namely, the 1979 Mw 6.5 Imperial Valley earthquake, 1989 Mw 6.8 Loma Prieta earthquake, 1992 Mw 7.2 Landers earthquake, and 1994 Mw 6.7 Northridge earthquake. In the second part, for two nonlinear case study structures, the IDR and PFA distributions over the height and their statistics, are obtained and compared for both recorded and simulated time histories. These structures are steel moment frames designed for high seismic hazard, 20-story high-rise and 6-story low-rise buildings. The results from this study highlight the similarities and differences between simulated and real records in terms of median and intra-event standard deviation of logs of seismic demands for MDoF building systems. This general agreement, in a broad range of moderate and long periods, may provide confidence in the use of the simulation methodology for engineering applications, whereas the discrepancies, statistically significant only at short periods, may help in addressing improvements in generation of synthetic records

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This study investigates the effects of ground-motion sequences on fragility and vulnerability of reinforced concrete (RC) moment-resisting frames (MRFs). Two four-storey, four-bay RC MRFs are selected as case studies. These structures, which share the same geometry, are representative of distinct vulnerability classes in the Mediterranean region and are characterized by different material properties, cross-section dimensions, and detailing. The first case study is a ductile MRF designed according to Eurocode 8 (i.e., a special-code frame), while the second is a non-ductile MRF designed to sustain only gravity loads (i.e., a pre-code frame). The influence of masonry infills on their seismic performance is also investigated. Advanced numerical models are developed to perform cloud-based sequential nonlinear time history analyses using ground-motion sequences assembled by randomly pairing two real records via Latin hypercube sampling. Different structure-specific damage states are considered to derive fragility curves for the undamaged structures, when subjected to a single ground-motion record, and state-dependent fragility curves by considering the additional damage induced by a second ground-motion record within the sequence. Damage-to-loss models are then used to derive mean vulnerability relationships. Results of the analysis show the importance of considering the effect of damage accumulation in the pre-code frames. Moreover, the presence of infills shows an overall positive contribution to the seismic performance of both frame types. Vector-valued vulnerability relationships accounting for the damaging effect of two ground-motion records are finally presented in the form of mean vulnerability surfaces.