Double, triple and multiple impulses for critical elastic-plastic earthquake response analysis to near-fault and long-duration ground motions

Abstract

Near-fault ground motions and long-period, long-duration ground motions possess special characteristics. The essential aspect of the near-fault ground motions can be characterized by one-cycle or a few-cycle sinusoidal waves (e.g. Ricker wavelet) which are well represented by double or triple impulses. Furthermore, the principal part of the long-period, long-duration ground motions can be characterized by many-cycle sinusoidal waves which are well described by multiple impulses. In this paper, it is shown that good approximate elasticplastic responses of various structural models to the near-fault ground motions and long-period, long-duration ground motions can be derived by using the responses to the double, triple and multiple impulses. The energy approach plays an important and critical role in the derivation of such good approximate responses in closed form.