Prediction of elastic displacement response spectra in Europe and the Middle East

Empirical equations are presented for the prediction of displacement response ordinates for damping ratios of 2, 5, 10, 20 and 30% of critical and for response periods up to 4s, using 532 accelerograms from the strong‐motion databank from Europe and the Middle East. The records were all re‐processed and only employed for regressions at periods within the usable range, defined as a fraction of the filter cut‐off and depending on the instrument type (digital or analogue), earthquake magnitude and site class. The equations can be applied to predict the geometric mean displacement and pseudo‐acceleration spectra for earthquakes with moment magnitudes ( M ) between 5 and 7.6, and for distances up to 100km. The equations also include style‐of‐faulting and site class as explanatory variables. The predictions obtained from these new equations suggest that earlier European equations for spectral displacements underestimate the ordinates at longer periods as a result of severe filtering and the use of the spectral ordinates at periods too close to the filter cut‐off. The results also confirm that the period defining the start of the constant displacement plateau in the Eurocode 8 (EC8) spectrum is excessively short at 2s. The results not only show that the scaling factor defined in EC8 for estimating the spectral ordinates at damping ratios different from 5% of critical are a good general approximation, but also that this scaling varies with magnitude and distance (reflecting the influence of duration) and also displays a mild dependence on response period. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.