Ground-Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs) for inelastic displacement and ductility demands of constant-strength SDOF systems

The objective of this paper is to present ground-motion prediction equations for ductility demand and inelastic spectral displacement of constant-strength perfectly elasto-plastic single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) oscillators. Empirical equations have been developed to compute the ductility demand as a function of two earthquake parameters; moment magnitude, and source-to-site distance; one site parameter, the ground type; and three oscillator parameters, an undamped natural period, critical damping ratio, and the mass-normalized yield strength. In addition, a comparative study of the proposed model with selected previous studies and recommendations of Eurocode 8 is presented. Proposed equations can easily be incorporated in existing probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) software packages with the introduction of an additional parameter. This leads to hazard curves for inelastic spectral displacement, which can provide better estimates of target displacement for nonlinear static procedures and an efficient intensity measure for probabilistic seismic demand analysis (PSDA). Proposed equations will be useful in performance evaluation of existing structures.