Introduction of conditional mean spectrum and conditional spectrum in the practice of seismic safety evaluation in China

• Published in: Journal of seismology Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 1005 - 1024
• Main Authors: Ji, Kun, Bouaanani, Najib, Wen, Ruizhi, Ren, Yefei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.07.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Case studies; Coefficients; Construction; Correlation coefficient; Correlation coefficients; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earthquakes; Evaluation; Geological hazards; Geophysics/Geodesy; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Ground motion; Hydrogeology; Illustrations; Original Article; Probability theory; Records; Safety; Seismic activity; Seismic analysis; Seismic engineering; Seismic hazard; Seismic zones; Seismology; Structural Geology; Vibration; China; Ground motion selection; Seismic hazard deaggregation; Hazard consistency; Ground motion prediction equation; Conditional mean spectrum; Seismic safety evaluation
• ISSN: 1383-4649; 1573-157X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10950-018-9747-8

This paper aims at implementing and introducing the use of conditional mean spectrum (CMS) and conditional spectrum (CS) as the main input parameters in the practice of seismic safety evaluation (SSE) in China, instead of the currently used uniform hazard spectrum (UHS). For this purpose, a procedure for M - R -epsilon seismic hazard deaggregation in China was first developed. For illustration purposes, two different typical sites in China, with one to two dominant seismic zones, were considered as examples to carry out seismic hazard deaggregation and illustrate the construction of CMS/CS. Two types of correlation coefficients were used to generate CMS and the results were compared over a vibration period range of interest. Ground motion records were selected from the NSMONS (2007–2015) and PEER NGA-West2 databases to correspond to the target CMS and CS. Hazard consistency of the spectral accelerations of the selected ground motion records was evaluated and validated by computing the annual exceedance probability rate of the response spectra and comparing the results to the hazard curve corresponding to each site of concern at different periods. The tools developed in this work and their illustrative application to specific case studies in China are a first step towards the adoption of CMS and CS into the practice of seismic safety evaluation in this country.