Correlation between seismic intensity parameters of HHT-based synthetic seismic accelerograms and damage indices of buildings

Abstract

In this work, a correlation study between well-known seismic parameters and damage indices is presented. The correlation analysis is first performed on a set of natural seismic signals and afterwards on a set of artificial accelerograms generated from natural records. The artificial seismic signals are generated by a combination of techniques; the Hilbert-Huang transform and an optimization algorithm. In addition, they are compatible with the design spectra of a chosen seismic area. Results reveal that the seismic parameters of the synthetic earthquake accelerograms provide the same degree of correlation with the used damage indices as the natural earthquakes. Thus, the proposed synthetic accelerograms technique appropriately represents a seismic event and, therefore, it is a useful tool in earthquake engineering. © 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.