Site-Specific MCER Response Spectra for Los Angeles Region based on 3-D Numerical Simulations and the NGA West2 Equations

C.B. Crouse, Thomas H. Jordan, Kevin R. Milner, Christine A. Goulet, Scott Callaghan, & Robert W. Graves

Published June 25, 2018, SCEC Contribution #8024

The Utilization of Ground Motion Simulation (UGMS) committee of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) developed site-specific, risk-targeted Maximum Considered Earthquake (MCER) response spectra for the Los Angeles region. The long period (T ≥ 2-sec) MCER response spectra were computed as the weighted average of MCER spectral accelerations derived from (1) 3-D numerical ground-motion simulations using the CyberShake computational platform, and (2) empirical ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) from the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center NGAWest2 project. The short period (T < 2- sec) MCER response spectra were computed exclusively from the NGAWest2 GMPEs. A web-based lookup tool was also developed so users can obtain the MCER response spectrum for a specified latitude and longitude and for a specified site class or 30-m average shear-wave velocity, VS30. The tool provides acceleration ordinates of the MCER response spectrum at 21 natural periods in the 0 to 10-sec band.

Key Words
response spectra, ground motion simulations, CyberShake, empirical ground-motion prediction equations

Citation
Crouse, C., Jordan, T. H., Milner, K. R., Goulet, C. A., Callaghan, S., & Graves, R. W. (2018, 06). Site-Specific MCER Response Spectra for Los Angeles Region based on 3-D Numerical Simulations and the NGA West2 Equations. Oral Presentation at 11th National Conference in Earthquake Engineering. Paper #518. https://11ncee.org/images/program/papers/11NCEE-000518.pdf