Simulation of digital earthquake accelerograms using the inverse discrete Fourier transform

Acceleration time histories of horizontal earthquake ground motion are obtained by inverting the discrete Fourier transform, which is defined by modelling the probability distribution of the Fourier phase differences conditional on the Fourier amplitude. The Fourier amplitude spectrum is modelled as a scaled, lognormal probability density function. Three parameters are necessary to define the Fourier amplitude spectrum. They are the total energy of the accelerogram, the central frequency, and the spectral bandwidth. The Fourier phase differences are simulated conditional on the Fourier amplitudes. The amplitudes are classified into three categories: small, intermediate and large. For each amplitude category, a beta distribution or a combination of a beta distribution and a uniform distribution are defined for the phase differences. Seven parameters are needed to completely define the phase difference distributions: two for each of the three beta distributions, and the weight of the uniform distribution for phase differences corresponding to small Fourier amplitudes. Approximately 300 uniformly processed horizontal ground motion records from recent California earthquakes are used to develop prediction formulas for the model parameters, as well as to validate the simulation model. The moment magnitude of the earthquakes ranges from 5.8 to 7.3. The source to site distance for all the records is less than 100 km. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.