Empirical correlation between inelastic and elastic spectral displacement demands

Abstract

Inelastic spectral displacement demand is arguably one of the most effective, simplified means of relating earthquake intensity to building damage. However, seismic hazard assessment is typically conducted using empirical ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) that only provide indications of elastic spectral response quantities, which an engineer subsequently relates to inelastic demands using empirical relationships such as the equal-displacement rule. An alternative approach is to utilize relationships for the inelastic spectral displacement demand directly within the seismic hazard assessment process. Such empirical relationships are developed in this work, as a function of magnitude, distance, building period and yield strength coefficient, for four different hysteretic models that are representative of a wide range of possible structural typologies found in practice. The new relationships are likely to be particularly useful for performance-based seismic design and assessment.