Call for contributions to SSA Special Session, "Deterministic Simulated Ground Motion Records..."

Forwarded SSA session announcement from Alexander Bykovtsev:

Please consider contributing to the special session described below, to be held at the SSA Annual Meeting, April 21-23, 2010, in Portland, Oregon. The abstract submission deadline is January 12, 2010. Thank you.

Deterministic Simulated Ground Motion Records under ASCE 7-10 as a Bridge Between Geotechnical and Structural Engineering Industry

According to new requirements of the American Society of Civil Engineers Standard (ASCE 7-10 Chapter 21 Site-Specific Ground Motion Procedures for Seismic Design), at least five recorded or simulated horizontal ground motion acceleration time histories shall be selected from events having magnitudes and fault distances that are consistent with those that control the Maximum Considered Earthquake. In some cases (e.g., from M6.0 to M8, less than 5 km from the fault zone) there may not be five sets of recorded ground motions that are appropriate, and simulated ground motion would be needed. Based on analytical and numerical simulation for the earthquake rupture propagations ground-motion modeling methods are being increasingly used to supplement the recorded ground-motion database. Unfortunately, there is no official procedure to follow for near-field sites (D < 5 km from the fault) and for determining whether facilities and bridges are considered critical or essential. This presents a paradox: the Building Codes and Standard ASCE/SEI 7-10 requires engineers to provide simulation of ground motion records (Chapter 21), but there is no official procedure for accomplishing this at near-field sites. This paradox should be resolved as soon as possible.

We invite papers that focus on simulating ground motions that satisfy ASCE/SEI 7-10 and address one or more of the following aspects:

1) procedures for simulating horizontal-, vertical-, and torsion-component ground-motion records for planar and nonplanar fault topology within 5 km of a fault zone;

2) comparisons of solutions for different deterministic models;

3) procedures for determining site-specific design ground-motion parameters for landslides and slope stability analyses with time history procedures;

4) site-specific design ground-motion parameters for bridges and essential facilities (with time history procedures) located within 5 km of a fault zone.

Conveners

Alexander Bykovtsev <bykovtsev1@yahoo.com>
Walter Silva <pacificengineering@juno.com>