Influence of Ground Motion Duration on the Structural Response at Multiple Seismic Intensity Levels

This paper aims to investigate the effects of motion duration on the structural seismic demands, seeking potential correlations between motion durations and structural responses at several seismic intensity levels. Three seismic intensity levels with 100years, 475years, and 2475years earthquake return periods (RPs) are first considered for correlation computations. Spectrally matched ground motions are employed to isolate the contribution of duration from the effects of ground motion amplitudes and response spectral shape. Four single degree of freedom systems derived from four real reinforced concrete structures are studied, where both degrading and non-degrading equivalent SDOF systems are included for structural modeling. Results show a low positive correlation between motion duration and structural displacement demand, but this correlation increases with an increase in earthquake RP. It is also investigated whether or not this insignificant positive correlation has an impact on the incremental dynamic analysis curves. The spectrally matched ground motions are divided into two distinct groups in this case: short  and long duration ground motions. The comparison of incremental dynamic analysis of these two groups at the collapse limit reveals that long-duration ground motions can cause up to a 20 percent decrease in the spectral acceleration demand of considered structural systems.