THE DURATION CHARACTERISTICS OF EARTHQUAKE GROUND MOTIONS

The duration of strong shaking is one of the key parameters in engineering analysis and earthquake resistant design of structures, since the damaging effects of an earthquake as well as operational reliability of equipment are often related to the duration of strong shaking. There are several definitions of duration, as described in the paper. In this study, the so-called relative significant duration has mainly been applied. A model is presented for the relative significant duration using regression analysis based on an appropriate data set for moment magnitude and source-to-site distance. The data set applied is taken from the ISESD databank and contain