Hazard-consistent earthquake scenarios

Earthquake-resistant design and seismic analysis often require the earthquake action to be represented in the form of acceleration time-histories. Real accelerograms can be selected based on matching an earthquake scenario, defined by magnitude and distance, and scaled if necessary. The scaled accelerograms should reflect the hazard in terms of the parameters that characterise the inelastic demand on structures, including response spectral ordinates, duration and energy content. In order to maintain realistic ground motions, the scaling factors should not differ greatly from unity. It is found that in many cases, where the hazard is influenced by more than one seismic source, it is impossible to define a single earthquake scenario that is compatible with the results of probabilistic seismic hazard assessment. Even if a hazard-consistent scenario can be defined, there are difficulties encountered in using the results to select and scale real accelerograms.