J.

Baker 1

Near-field and directionality issues for

ground motion selection

Jack W. Baker

J. Baker 2

Language from ASCE 7-10

Section 16.1.3.2

At sites within 3 miles (5 km) of the active fault that controls the hazard,
each pair of components shall be rotated to the fault-normal and fault-
parallel directions of the causative fault and shall be scaled so that the
average of the fault-normal components is not less than the MCER
response spectrum for the period range from 0.2T to 1.5T.
J. Baker 3

Language from the BSSC proposal

Section 16.2.3.3

When the MCER ground motion level is controlled by events for which
near-fault effects are expected, the site shall be identified as a near-
fault site and a suitable number of the ground motions shall include
near-fault and directivity effects including direction of fault rupture and
velocity pulses as appropriate.

Section 16.2.5.1

For sites identified as near-fault in Section 16.2.3.3, each pair of

horizontal ground motion components shall be rotated to the fault-
normal and fault-parallel directions of the causative fault and applied to
the building in such orientation.

At all other sites, each pair of horizontal ground motion components

shall be applied to the building at arbitrary orientation angles.

J. Baker 4

Near-fault phenomenon #1: velocity pulses

Intense short-duration velocity

pulses are observed in the
near-fault region

Often (but not always) caused

by near-fault directivity

Two effects to consider:

Increased response spectra (not
a Chapter 16 issue)
Especially damaging time series
(addressed in Chapter 16)

Fault normal velocity time histories from

1992 Landers EQ (Somerville et al.,
1997)
J. Baker 5
Pulse observations from the 1979 Imperial Valley
earthquake

Pulse identification via Baker (2007)

J. Baker 6

Pulse observations from past earthquakes

1979 Imperial Valley 1992 Landers

J. Baker 7

How many pulses should you pick?

Shahi, S. K., and Baker, J. W. (2011). An Empirically Calibrated Framework for Including
the Effects of Near-Fault Directivity in Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis. Bulletin of the
Seismological Society of America, 101(2), 742755.

Further discussion by Almufti et al. (2014). Incorporation of Velocity Pulses in Design

Ground Motions for Response History Analysis Using a Probabilistic Framework.
Earthquake Spectra, (in press).

Simple prediction based on More involved calculation

deaggregation information: based on revised PSHA
calculation:

P(pulse|Sa(5s)>x)
1
P( pulse | R, s )
1 e0.642 0.167 R 0.075 s

Sa(5s) [g]

J. Baker 8

How many pulses should you pick?

Hayden, C., Bray, J., and Abrahamson, N. (2014). Selection of Near-

Fault Pulse Motions. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental
Engineering, 140(7).
1
Proportion of pulse motions R 15.99/( 3)2
1 e 3.8721.04

For example, if R=10 km for an Mw = 7 governing event and =1.0 for

the 5% damped spectral acceleration at a period of 1s, the proportion
of ground motions that should be pulse motions is 0.40.
J. Baker 9

Near-fault phenomenon #2: ground motion polarization

1979 Imperial Valley, El Centro Differential Array recording

J. Baker 10

Measuring single-orientation (pseudo) response spectra

k
Sa(T ) max x(t)
m t

x (t )

x(t) cx(t)
m kx(t) m
xg (t)

xg (t)
J. Baker 11

Measuring direction-dependent response spectra

z (t )

z(t) cz (t) kz(t) m

m yg (t)sin
xg (t)cos

z (t ) x(t )cos y (t )sin

k
Sa( ,T ) max x(t)cos y(t)sin
m t

J. Baker 12

Measuring direction-dependent response spectra

Sa(,1s) / SaRotD100(1s)
Displacement / Maximum
displacement
SaRotD100 orientation
SaRotD100
2
SaGeoMean (T ) Sa X (T ) 2 SaY (T ) 2 SaRotD 50

SaRotD100 (T ) max Sa( ,T )

SaRotD50 (T ) median Sa( ,T )

SaRotD0 orientation

SaGMRotI 50 (T ) ...

SaRotD50 orientation
Gilroy Array #6, 1984 Morgan
Hill
J. Baker 13
Example 1-second oscillator responses
to multi-component motions

Sa(,1s) / SaRotD100(1s)
Displacement / Maximum
displacement
SaRotD100 SaRotD100
1 2
SaRotD 50 SaRotD 50

HWA031, 1999 Chi-Chi-04 Gilroy Array #6, 1984 Morgan

Hill

J. Baker 14

What direction do we see maximum shaking in?

T = 1.5 s
Quantify max direction using as angle to strike parallel

Site
Strike parallel
orientation
Fault rupture T=3s

1979 Imperial Valley-06, El Centro Differential

Array
J. Baker 15
Bin observations by magnitude and distance, observe max
direction
Rrup bins

Shahi, and Baker (2014). NGA-West2 models for

ground-motion directionality. Earthquake Spectra,
30(3) 1285 1300

J. Baker 16

Bin observations by period (0 < R < 5 km)

J. Baker 17

Conclusions

Velocity pulses are often observed in near-fault ground motions. The

frequency depends upon how rare the ground motion is and how
large the rupture is.

Preferential polarization of ground motion response spectra within 5

km of a fault rupture is observed in recorded ground motions.

Language in the BSSC chapter 16 proposal acknowledges the

above two issue and asks analysts to address them in ground
motion selection.