Effect of peak ground acceleration to velocity ratio on ductility demand of inelastic systems

Abstract

SUMMARYA statistical analysis is performed to investigate the significance of peak ground acceleration to velocity ratio ( u h ) on the displacement ductility demand of simple bilinear hysteretic systems. Three groups of earthquake records representative of low, normal and high a/v ranges are used as input ground motions. The design yield strength of the inelastic systems is specified from the base shear formula in the 1980 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC 1980) and that in NBCC 1985 respectively. The former case represents the common practice of specifying seismic design base shear based on a peak site acceleration, while in the latter case the base shear is specified based on peak ground velocity and u/u ratio. Mean displacement ductility demands are obtained for the three groups of ground motions; and the corresponding dispersion characteristics are examined. The results show that the ground motion u/u range has a significant effect on the displacement ductility demand, and it should be accounted for in design strength specification.

The effect of material and ground motion uncertainty on the seismic vulnerability curves of RC structure

“…Zhu et al [31] discussed these three categories of earthquake ground motions and their engineering and seismological significance. The a/v ratio implicitly accounts for many seismo-tectonic features and site characteristics of earthquake ground motion records.…”

Engineering Characterization of Earthquake Ground Motions

“…A preliminary estimation of the frequency content of the records may be inferred by the PGA/PGV ratio (Zhu et al 1988;Sawada et al 1992;Kwon and Elnashai 2006). Low PGA/PGV ratios generally indicate earthquakes with low predominant frequencies, broader response spectra, and longer duration.…”

Optimal seismic design of steel structures by an efficient soft computing based algorithm

“…In this study, the records are classified according to the peak ground acceleration (PGA) to peak ground velocity (PGV) called a/v ratio [24]. This ratio reflects many source characteristics, travel path and site conditions, as well as structural response parameters.…”