Duration effect of near-fault pulse-like ground motions and identification of most suitable duration measure

The duration effect of near-fault pulse-like ground motions on structural demands and the identification of most suitable duration measure are systematically addressed in this paper. Firstly, the duration effect of the Mavroeidis & Papageorgiou (M&P) pulse on the normalized maximum displacement and normalized hysteretic energy of elastic-perfectly-plastic, bilinear and rigid-plastic (i.e., Newmark sliding block) single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems is analyzed by using dimensional analysis. Particularly, an intrinsic length scale is proposed to present well the normalized responses. It is shown that the duration effect of M&P pulses on the normalized responses is affected by the frequency ratio and normalized yield displacement. Generally, the duration effect is significant on the normalized hysteretic energy, whereas it is not remarkable on the normalized maximum displacement of ordinary inelastic SDOF systems, except for the normalized sliding displacement of Newmark sliding blocks. Then, a set of 65 spectrally equivalent strongest near-fault ground motions is input to the aforementioned SDOF systems, and the correlation analysis between seismic responses and duration measures is conducted. It is shown that the associated results are consistent with those obtained by dimensional analysis. Moreover, the uniform duration generally presents the best correlation with seismic demands, and thus is identified as the most suitable duration measure. Finally, the correlation statements are further validated on three 5-, 10-, and 20-story shear frame buildings with strength and stiffness degradation under spectrally equivalent ground motions.