Ground motion record simulation for structural analysis by consideration of spectral acceleration autocorrelation pattern

A novel approach is introduced to generate simulated ground motion records by considering spectral acceleration correlations at multiple periods. Most of the current reliable Ground Motion Record (GMR) simulation procedures use a seismological model including source, path and site characteristics. However, the response spectrum of simulated GMR is somewhat different when compared with the response spectrum based on recorded GMRs. More specifically, the correlation between the spectral values at multiple periods is a characteristic of a record which is usually different between simulated and recorded GMRs. As this correlation has a significant influence on the structural response, it is needed to investigate the consistency of the simulated ground motions with actual records. This issue has been investigated in this study by incorporating an optimization algorithm within the Boore simulation technique. Eight seismological key parameters were optimized in order to achieve approximately the same correlation coefficients and spectral acceleration between two sets of real and simulated records. The results show that the acceleration response spectra of the synthetic ground motions also have good agreement with the real recorded response spectra by implementation of the proposed optimized values.