Simulation of non-stationary conditional ground motion fields in the time domain

This paper addresses the topic of simulating spatially variable ground motion fields conditioned on a known accelerogram. The conditional ground motion fields can be used in design or verification studies where seismic analysis has to be performed for a couple of natural accelerograms that have been preselected by seismologists or other experts. The methodology is based on conditional densities. In contrast to most authors, the conditional densities method is not applied to the Fourier coefficients, but it is used for the construction of a conditional Gaussian process model in the time domain. This has the advantage that fully non-stationary conditional time histories can be simulated directly in the time domain. The cross-correlation functions needed for this approach are evaluated from commonly used ground motion models expressed as evolutionary power spectral densities. An application to the El Centro earthquake record is presented. The properties of the simulated ground motion fields are analysed and compared to the data and the theoretical model.