Chapter 3: Selection of strong motion for foundation design

Engineers often need to use site-specific earthquake ground motions for designing foundations. The seismic design of foundations requires non-linear time history analysis to evaluate soil–structure interaction effects. This requires the selection of an appropriate time history as the input. For countries or sites (e.g. Japan) where earthquake recorded data are available (in other words, where fault characteristics to some extent have been identified), manipulation of these records can generate the required site-specific motion to the satisfaction of most stakeholders. However, where these records are unavailable (for countries such as India or China), artificial ground motions are generated for analysis and design purposes. Several methods are used in practice for the generation of these artificial ground motions. These approaches include