Inelastic Displacement Ratios for Seismic Assessment of Structures Subjected to Forward-Directivity Near-Fault Ground Motions

This article presents results of a statistical study focused on evaluating inelastic displacement ratios (i.e., ratio of maximum inelastic displacement with respect to maximum elastic displacement demand) of degrading and non degrading single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems subjected to forward-directivity near-fault ground motions. CR spectra are computed for normalized periods of vibration with respect to the predominant period of the ground motion to provide a better ground motion characterization. This period normalization allows reducing the record-to-record variability in the estimation of CR. An equation to obtain estimates of CR for the seismic assessment of structures exposed to forward-directivity near-fault ground motions is proposed.