SCEC Award Number 12121 View PDF
Proposal Category Individual Proposal (Integration and Theory)
Proposal Title VALIDATION OF SIMULATED GROUND MOTIONS RELATIVE TO SEISMIC GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING DEMAND PARAMETERS
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Jonathan Stewart University of California, Los Angeles
Other Participants 1 Graduate Student Researcher to be determined. Likely 1 undergraduate intern to be determined for summer 2012.
SCEC Priorities 6e SCEC Groups GMSV, GMP
Report Due Date 03/15/2014 Date Report Submitted N/A
Project Abstract
 This project is a part of the ground motion simulation validation (GMSV) task in which we validate the duration of the Broadband Platform (BBP) simulated motions. We develop ground motion prediction equations (GMPE) for the median and standard deviation of the significant duration of earthquake ground motions from shallow crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions. We consider significant duration parameters for 5-75%, 5-95%, and 20-80% of the normalized Arias intensity. The equations were derived from a global database with M 3.0-7.9 events. We use the developed GMPE to validate the significant duration parameters from the simulated recordings of BBP version 15.3. We studied trends re- lated to magnitude scaling, distance scaling, and standard deviations from the simulated motions. Some misfits are observed in the mean and dispersion of durations from simulated motions and their trend with distance. Understanding the source of these misfits can help guide future improvements in the simulation routines.
Intellectual Merit As a part of the ground motion simulation validation (GMSV) task, this project has developed a methodology and tools for validation of the simulated ground motions with respect to their duration characteristics. These characteristics have not been considered in prior validation exercises focused on pseudo- spectral acceleration, and as such provide novel insights into the performance of simulation codes.
Broader Impacts This project partially supported a PhD student at a SCEC core institution (UCLA).
Exemplary Figure Figure 2: Model bias ( csim ) for EXSIM, GP, SDSU, and UCSB simulation methods as defined by mean k
misfit of simulated data for 50 realizations each of five events relative to AS16 GMPE.