Minimal Arias intensity modification of ground motions to achieve extreme structural response

Abstract This paper presents a methodology to minimally modify a ground motion time history to induce collapse in nonlinear single‐degree‐of‐freedom systems (SDOF). The metric used to characterize the modification is the Arias intensity. The proposed procedure is a heuristic extension of a closed‐form solution derived to achieve a target maximum response in linear systems. The methodology is presented as a potential alternative to incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) widely used in earthquake engineering.