Site-Specific Response Spectra: Guidelines for Engineering Practice

Code response spectrum models, which are used widely in the earthquake-resistant design of buildings, are simple to apply but they do not necessarily represent the real behavior of an earthquake. A code response spectrum model typically incorporates ground motion behavior in a diversity of earthquake scenarios affecting the site and does not represent any specific earthquake scenario. The soil amplification phenomenon is also poorly represented, as the current site classification scheme contains little information over the potential dynamic response behavior of the soil sediments. Site-specific response spectra have the merit of much more accurately representing real behavior. The improvement in accuracy can be translated into significant potential cost savings. Despite all the potential merits of adopting site-specific response spectra, few design engineers make use of these code provisions that have been around for a long time. This lack of uptake of the procedure by structural designers is related to the absence of a coherent set of detailed guidelines to facilitate practical applications. To fill in this knowledge gap, this paper aims at explaining the procedure in detail for generating site-specific response spectra for the seismic design or assessment of buildings. Surface ground motion accelerograms generated from the procedure can also be employed for nonlinear time-history analyses where necessary. A case study is presented to illustrate the procedure in a step-by-step manner