COMPUTATION

OF EARTHQUAKE
RESPONSE
SPECTRUM

30-Apr-16

Project 1 : Earthquake Engineering

Angela Tamrakar(
Student Number: 1593649
Supervisor: Chen Shiming

Table of Contents
1.

Problem Statement ............................................................................................................................................. 2

2.

Basic Theory for Response Spectra ....................................................................................................... 3

3.

2.1.

Introduction to Earthquake Ground motion ............................................................................. 3

2.2.

Response Spectrum .................................................................................................................................. 3

2.3.

Tripartite Representation ....................................................................................................................... 4

2.4.

Fourier Amplitude Spectrum ............................................................................................................... 4

Solution ...................................................................................................................................................................... 5
3.1.

Acquisition of input acceleration from PEER Strong Motion Database................. 5

3.1.1.

Selection of Input data based on the shear velocity............................................. 5

3.1.2.

Converting the PEER Data format into two column format ................................ 6

3.2.

Plotting the time history ground motion acceleration (accelerogram.m) ............ 7

3.3.

Plotting of response spectra using MALAB codes ........................................................... 12

3.3.1.

SPEC.m.................................................................................................................................................. 12

3.3.2.

Response_spectra.m ..................................................................................................................... 12

3.3.3.

Fourier amplitude spectrum (fourier.m) .......................................................................... 13

3.3.4.

Output................................................................................................................................................... 14

3.4.

Comparing the results from MATLAB with results from SeismoSignal software
30

3.5.

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 32

3.6.

References ................................................................................................................................................... 32

1. Problem Statement
Compute the displacement, velocity and acceleration response spectra of 4 different
accelerograms (including the El Centro wave N-S component). According to Chinese
code for site classifications, for each class of site at least two accelerograms are
adopted.
For each accelerogram five damping ratios, i.e. 1%, 2%, 5% and 10% should be
considered. The abscissa adopts the fundamental period T (s) over the interval 0-10s.
In the report the time history and Fourier amplitudes of the 4 accelerograms should
be given.
In the report your name, number of academic management, your advisors name
and corresponding information should be indicated.

2. Basic Theory for Response Spectra

2.1.

Introduction to Earthquake Ground motion

The strong earthquake ground motion is obtained from the acceleration records from
the past. The acceleration can be integrated with time to form a time history of
acceleration, velocity or displacement. But, the peak ground acceleration alone does
not reflect the intensity of the structural response because duration and dominant
period may also influence the response of the structure significantly.

2.2.

Response Spectrum

A response spectrum is another way to characterize earthquake ground motion. The

concept of a response spectrum may be introduced with reference to the singledegree-of freedom structure with mass m, stiffness k, and damping constant c.
The differential equation of motion for such a system may be expressed as

Using Duhamels integral and considering zero initial

displacement u(t) may then be written as

conditions, the relative

the absolute value of the systems maximum relative displacement, may be expressed
as

Taking the derivative of this equation, we get,

It may be seen, thus, that the response of a single-degree-of-freedom structure to an

earthquake ground motion, be it in terms of relative displacement, relative velocity,
or absolute acceleration, depends on only two of the structures parameters: its
3

undamped natural frequency and its damping ratio. A response spectrum may be thus
defined as a graphical representation of the variation with natural frequency(or natural
period) and damping ratio of the absolute value of the maximum response of a singledegree-of-freedom system to a given ground acceleration time history.

2.3.

Tripartite Representation

An alternative and convenient way to plot a response spectrum is by means of the

so-called tripartite or tetralogarithmic representation.
If a new spectral response referred to as spectral pseudovelocity is defined as

In the MATLAB code, Newmarks method is used to solve the differential equations.

2.4.

Fourier Amplitude Spectrum

A Fourier spectrum constitutes the representation of a time history into the frequency
domain. Hence, the Fourier spectrum of a ground motion time history is simply defined
as the Fourier transform of the ground motion time history.

The amplitude for the fourier spectrum is given by

3. Solution
3.1.

Acquisition of input acceleration from PEER Strong Motion Database

There are many sites from which the ground motion data could be downloaded, here,
the PEER Strong motion database is chosen.

3.1.1.

Selection of Input data based on the shear velocity

There are thousands of accelerograms available in the database. Selection of data is

done based on the shear velocity.
According to the Chinese design code GB 50011-2001(Code for Seismic Design of
Buildings) the site soil can be classified into sub categories based on the base shear
velocity. the classification is provided in table 4.1.3 of the code.

While doing the seismic design, the selection of acclerogram for a site will depend
on the shear velocity of the station where the acclerograph is placed. We select
two accelerogram for each type of soil. The selected accelorgram has the shear
velocity(Vs30) same as the base shear velocity of the soil at the site.
The following accelerograms are selected
SN

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Shear wave Name

of
velocity(vs)
earthquake
m/s
vs>500
El
MayorCucapah
500vs>250 Kobe Japan
250vs>140
vs140

Imperial
Elcentro

Name of accelerogram choosen

RSN5828_SIERRA.MEX_RAC000
RSN5824_SIERRA.MEX_CIC000
RSN1119_KOBE_TAZ000
RSN1106_KOBE_KJM000
Valley, RSN6_IMPVALL.I_I-ELC270

Loma Prieta

RSN6_IMPVALL.I_I-ELC180
RSN732_LOMAP_A02043

Vs
30
(m/s)
535.24
505.23
312
312
213.44
213.44
133.11
5

RSN759_LOMAP_A01000

3.1.2.

116.35

Converting the PEER Data format into two column format

The data downloaded from the PEER Strong motion database have the following
format.

3.1.2.1.
tr.m
A matlab program called tr.m is written to convert the five column data format to
the one having two columns one for time and other for acceleration.

The output of the code is a txt file which looks like the following:

3.2.

Plotting the time history ground motion acceleration (accelerogram.m)

clear;
load loma2.txt
t=loma2(:,1);
a=loma2(:,2);
figure('Name','Spectral Displacement','NumberTitle','off')
plot(t,a);
grid on
xlabel('Time (sec)','FontSize',13);
ylabel('Ground Acceleration(g)','FontSize',13);
title('Accelerogram ','FontSize',13)

The output of the program for different accelerograms are given below:

3.2.1.1.

RSN5828_SIERRA.MEX_RAC000

3.2.1.2.

RSN5824_SIERRA.MEX_CIC000

3.2.1.3.

RSN1119_KOBE_TAZ000

3.2.1.4.

RSN1106_KOBE_KJM000

3.2.1.5.

RSN6_IMPVALL.I_I-ELC270

3.2.1.6.

RSN6_IMPVALL.I_I-ELC180

10

3.2.1.7.

RSN732_LOMAP_A02043

3.2.1.8.

RSN759_LOMAP_A01000

11

3.3.

Plotting of response spectra using MALAB codes

First, a function called SPEC.m is defined to calculate the responses and the responses
are plotted using the program Response_spectra.m

3.3.1.

SPEC.m

function [T,Spa,Spv,Sd]=SPEC(dt,Ag,zet,g,endp)
u=zeros(length(Ag),1);
v=zeros(length(Ag),1);
ac=zeros(length(Ag),1);
Ag(end+1)=0;
T(1,1)=0.00;
for j=1:round(endp/dt)
% equation of motion(Newmark linear method)
omega(j,1)=2*pi/T(j);
% Natural Frequency
m=1;
k=(omega(j))^2*m;
c=2*m*omega(j)*zet/100;
K=k+3*c/dt+6*m/(dt)^2;
a=6*m/dt+3*c;
b=3*m+dt*c/2;
for i=1:length(u)-1
u(1,1)=0;
%initial conditions
v(1,1)=0;
ac(1,1)=0;
df=-(Ag(i+1)-Ag(i))+a*v(i,1)+b*ac(i,1); % delta Force
du=df/K;
dv=3*du/dt-3*v(i,1)-dt*ac(i,1)/2;
dac=6*(du-dt*v(i,1))/(dt)^2-3*ac(i,1);
u(i+1,1)=u(i,1)+du;
v(i+1,1)=v(i,1)+dv;
ac(i+1,1)=ac(i,1)+dac;
end
Sd(j,1)=max(abs((u(:,1))));
%Sv(j,1)=max(abs(v));
%Sa(j,1)=max(abs(ac))/g;
Spv(j,1)=Sd(j)*omega(j);
Spa(j,1)=Sd(j)*(omega(j))^2/g;
T(j+1,1)=T(j)+dt;
end
Ag(end)=[];
T(end)=[];
Sd(2,1)=0; Spv(1:2,1)=0;Spa(1:2,1)=max(abs(Ag))/g;

3.3.2.

Response_spectra.m

load loma2.txt
dt=0.005;
Ag=loma2(:,2)*g;
g=9810;
endp=10;

[T,Spa,Spv,Sd]=SPEC(dt,Ag,1,g,endp);
T1=T;
Spa1=Spa;
Spv1=Spv;

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Sd1=Sd;
[T,Spa,Spv,Sd]=SPEC(dt,Ag,2,g,endp);
T2=T;
Spa2=Spa;
Spv2=Spv;
Sd2=Sd;
[T,Spa,Spv,Sd]=SPEC(dt,Ag,5,g,endp);
T3=T;
Spa3=Spa;
Spv3=Spv;
Sd3=Sd;
[T,Spa,Spv,Sd]=SPEC(dt,Ag,10,g,endp);
T4=T;
Spa4=Spa;
Spv4=Spv;
Sd4=Sd;
loglog(T1,Sd1,T2,Sd2,T3,Sd3,T4,Sd4)
grid on
xlabel('Period (sec)','FontSize',13);
ylabel('Sd (mm)','FontSize',13);
title('Displacement Spectrum','FontSize',13)
xlim([0.01,10])
legend('1% Damping','2% Damping','5% Damping','10% Damping')
figure('Name','Pseudo Acceleration Spectrum','NumberTitle','off')
loglog(T1,Spa1,T2,Spa2,T3,Spa3,T4,Spa4)
grid on
xlabel('Period (sec)','FontSize',13);
ylabel('Spa (mm^2/s)','FontSize',13);
title('Pseudo Acceleration Spectrum','FontSize',13)
xlim([0.01,10])
legend('1% Damping','2% Damping','5% Damping','10% Damping')
figure('Name','Pseudo velocity Spectrum','NumberTitle','off')
loglog(T1,Spv1,T2,Spv2,T3,Spv3,T4,Spv4)
grid on
xlabel('Period (sec)','FontSize',13);
ylabel('Spv (mm/s)','FontSize',13);
title('Pseudo velocity Spectrum','FontSize',13)
xlim([0.01,10])
legend('1% Damping','2% Damping','5% Damping','10% Damping')

3.3.3.

Fourier amplitude spectrum (fourier.m)

load Elmayor1.txt ; % load the Seismic data

a = Elmayor1(:,2) ; % acceleration for respective time step
dt = 0.005;
% Sampling period
Fs = 1/dt;
% Sampling frequency
N = length(a);
% Length of signal
t = (0:N-1)*dt;
% Time vector
T= dt*N;
Y = fft(a);
P2 = abs(Y/N);
P1 = P2(1:N/2);
P1= T*P1;
f = (Fs/N)*(1:(N/2));
plot(f,P1)
grid on
title('Fourier acceleration Spectrum')
xlabel('f (Hz)')

13

ylabel('Amplitude of acceleration (g)(m/s)')

axis ([dt,10,0,0.1]);

3.3.4.

Output

3.3.4.1.

RSN5828_SIERRA.MEX_RAC000

14

15

3.3.4.2.

RSN5824_SIERRA.MEX_CIC000

16

17

3.3.4.3.

RSN1119_KOBE_TAZ000

18

19

3.3.4.4.

RSN1106_KOBE_KJM000

20

21

3.3.4.5.

RSN6_IMPVALL.I_I-ELC270

22

23

3.2.2.5.

RSN6_IMPVALL.I_I-ELC180

24

25

3.3.4.6.

RSN732_LOMAP_A02043

26

27

3.3.4.7.

RSN759_LOMAP_A01000

28

29

3.4.

Comparing the results from MATLAB with results from SeismoSignal

software

To check the accuracy of the MATLAB code response_spectra.m, a software called

SeismoSignal is used. The displacement spectrum for RSN6_IMPVALL.I_I-ELC180 is
plotted. We can see that at time period=2secs the response displacement is 290 mm
and from the SeismoSignal software the corresponding value is also about 290 mm.

Figure 1:Results by MATLAB coding

Figure 2:Results from SeismoSignal

30

To verify the fourier.m, again RSN6_IMPVALL.I_I-ELC180 accelerogram is chosen.

It can be seen that the values of fourier amplitude for corresponding frequency is
same from both the graphs.

31

3.5.

Conclusion

Thus, the response spectra for various time periods are plotted. It could be seen that
the response varied with the change in damping ratio.

3.6.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

References

http://ngawest2.berkeley.edu/
www.mathworks.com
Structural Dynamics, A.K Chopra.
Fundamental Concepts of Earthquake Engineering, Roberto Villaverde
Lecture notes on Earthquake Engineering by Chen Jianbing and Li Suzhen

32