Genetic programming-based attenuation relationship: An application of recent earthquakes in turkey

This study investigates an application of genetic programming (GP) for the prediction of peak ground acceleration (PCA) using strong-ground-motion data from Turkey. The input variables in the developed GP model are the average shear-wave velocity, earthquake source to site distance and earthquake magnitude, and the output is the PGA values. The proposed GP model is based on the most reliable database compiled for earthquakes in Turkey. The results show that the consistency between the observed PGA values and the predicted ones by the GP model yields relatively high correlation coefficients (R-2 = 0.75). The proposed model is also compared with an existing attenuation relationship and found to be more accurate. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.