Energy-compatible and spectrum-compatible (ECSC) ground motion simulation using wavelet packets

A stochastic ground-motion simulation and modification technique is developed to generate energy-compatible and spectrum-compatible (ECSC) synthetic motions through wavelet packet characterization and modification in both frequency and time domains. The ECSC method significantly advances traditional spectral matching approaches, because it generates ground motions that not only match the target spectral accelerations, but also match Arias intensity build-up and significant durations. The great similarity between the ECSC simulated motions and the actual recorded motions is demonstrated through one-to-one comparison of a variety of intensity measures. Extensive numerical simulations were also performed to validate the performance of the ECSC ground motions through nonlinear analyses of elasto-plastic oscillators. The ECSC method can be easily implemented in the generalized conditional intensity measure framework by directly simulating a set of motions following a targeted distribution of multiple intensity measures. Therefore, the ECSC method has great potential to be used in performance-based earthquake design and analysis. Copyright (c) 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.