Comparison of equivalent linear and nonlinear ground response analysis methods in the time domain

Earthquake resistant design is an important consideration for designing structures in seismic prone areas.On the other hand to get the design earthquake motion at the ground surface or at the foundation of a structure, engineers need to make a seismic site response analysis.The motion equation is a secondorder propagation type of equation. This equation can be solved in either frequency domain or time domainQUAKE/W is a geotechnical finite element software product used for the dynamic analysis of earth structures subjected to earthquake shaking and other sudden impact loadingThis softwaresolvesthe equation of motion in the time domain by integrating in a small time incrementInthis paper, the Coyote Lakeproblem is simulated by the softwareThis modeling iscarried out withoutanyboundary conditions and only by enough increasing the width of the soillayers.The analyses were done by equivalent linear and nonlinear methods.The peak ground acceleration and response spectrum at the ground surface are determined by the two approaches for the site.Comparison of the results shows that the nonlinear approach predicts closer response to real recorded datawith respect equivalent linear.

Keywords:

domain , Peak ground acceleration , Seismic ground response , Equivalent linear and onlinear