Using spectral matched records to explore the influence of strong-motion duration on inelastic structural response

There is considerable debate in the technical literature regarding the influence of the duration of earthquake strong motion on structural damage. If duration is an important consideration, care must be taken to use ground motions with appropriate duration in engineering design and assessment. This study analyses an 8-storey RC wall-frame building under the action of 30 accelerograms with different durations. The primary influence of the response spectral amplitude is homogenized by scaling and adjusting the accelerograms using wavelets so that they have a good match to the same smooth response spectra. Comparison of the correlation between the duration of the ground motion and different damage measures reveals that duration has no influence on damage measures using the peak response, such as inter-storey drift, but is correlated to cumulative damage measures, such as absorbed hysteretic energy and fatigue damage.