PEER Reports

PEER Reports

PEER Arizona Strong-Motion Database and GMPEs Evaluation, PEER Report 2014-09

Tadahiro Kishida
Robert E. Kayen
Olga-Joan Ktenidou
Walter J. Silva
Robert B. Darragh
Jennie Watson-Lamprey
2014

This report summarizes the products and results of a study on the collection, processing, and analysis of earthquake ground-motions recorded in Arizona at several recording stations within 200 km from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in central Arizona. The recorded ground motion in Arizona were compiled and processed according to the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center’s (PEER) record-processing standards. Shear-wave velocity profiles at ten recording stations were measured through the spectral analysis of surface wave dispersion technique. Additionally, “kappa” a...

Evaluation of Collapse and Non-Collapse of Parallel Bridges Affected by Liquefaction and Lateral Spreading, PEER Report 2014-10

Benjamin Turner
Scott J. Brandenberg
Jonathan P. Stewart
2014

The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center and the California Department of Transportation have recently developed design guidelines for computing foundation demands during lateral spreading using equivalent static analysis (ESA) procedures. In this study, ESA procedures are applied to two parallel bridges that were damaged during the 2010 M 7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake in Baja California, Mexico. The bridges are both located approximately 15 km from the surface rupture of the fault on soft alluvial soil site conditions. Estimated median ground motions in the area in the absence...

Reference-Rock Site Conditions for Central and Eastern North America: Part I - Velocity Definition, PEER Report 2014-11

Youssef M.A. Hashash
Albert R. Kottke
Jonathan P. Stewart
Kenneth W. Campbell
Byungmin Kim
Ellen M. Rathje
Walter J. Silva
2014

As part of the Next Generation Attenuation Relationships for Central and Eastern North America (NGA-East) Project, we have gathered data to define an appropriate reference-rock site condition for CENA. The reference-rock site condition is defined by the S- and P-wave velocities, as well as the local crustal damping (K0). This report deals solely with the definition of the reference P- and S-wave velocities. The significance of the reference-rock definition is that it represents the site condition for which ground motions will be predicted...

Reference-Rock Site Conditions for Central and Eastern North America: Part II - Attenuation (Kappa) Definition, PEER Report 2014-12

Kenneth W. Campbell
Youssef M.A. Hashash
Byungmin Kim
Albert R. Kottke
Ellen M. Rathje
Walter J. Silva
Jonathan P. Stewart
2014

This report presents the results of a comprehensive literature search and limited additional studies that support the recommendation of a probability distribution for the shear-wave (S- wave) site attenuation parameter Κ0, or site kappa, associated with a reference-rock site condition in central and eastern North America (CENA). This study was conducted as part of the Geotechnical Working Group (GWG) activities of the Next Generation Attenuation for Central and Eastern North America (NGA-East) Project conducted by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER...

NGA-East Regionalization Report: Comparison of Four Crustal Regions within Central and Eastern North America using Waveform Modeling and 5%-Damped Pseudo-Spectral Acceleration Response, PEER Report 2014-15

Jennifer Dreiling
Marius P. Isken
Walter D. Mooney
Martin C. Chapman
Richard W. Godbee
2014

An important aspect of the Next Generation Attenuation for Central and Eastern North America (NGA-East) project led by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) entails assigning seismic wave attenuation values to major crustal regions. In this study, Central and Eastern North America (CENA) is subdivided into four regions based on the geologic and tectonic setting. The regions are the Central North America (CNA), the Appalachian Province (APP), the Atlantic Coastal Plain (ACP), and the Mississippi Embayment/Gulf Coast region (MEM). Each region is described by a...

PEER NGA-East Database, PEER Report 2014-17

Christine A. Goulet
Tadahiro Kishida
Timothy D. Ancheta
Chris H. Cramer
Robert B. Darragh
Walter J. Silva
Youssef M.A. Hashash
Joseph Harmon
Jonathan P. Stewart
Katie E. Wooddell
Robert R. Youngs
2014

This report serves as a documentation of the ground motion database development for the NGA-East Project. The ground motion database includes the two- and three-component ground-motion recordings from numerous selected events (M > 2.5, distances up to 1500 km) recorded in the Central and Eastern North America (CENA) region since 1988. The final database contains over 29,000 records from 81 earthquake events and 1379 recording stations. The time series and metadata collected went through numerous rounds of quality assurance and review. The NGA-East database constitutes the largest...

Three-Dimensional Beam-Truss Model for Reinforced-Concrete Walls and Slabs Subjected to Cyclic Static or Dynamic Loading, PEER Report 2014-18

Yuan Lu
Marios Panagiotou
Ioannis Koutromanos
2014

The three-dimensional (3D) beam-truss model (BTM) for reinforced concrete (RC) walls, which was developed by the first two authors in a previously published paper, is modified to better represent flexure-shear interaction and more accurately compute diagonal shear failures under static cyclic or dynamic loading. The modifications pertain to the element formulations and the determination of the inclination angle of the diagonal elements. Moreover the BTM is extended to allow the simulation of RC slabs. The modified BTM is validated using the experimental test data of eight RC walls...

Seismic Response of a Hybrid Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Bridge Column Detailed for Accelerated Bridge Construction, PEER Report 2014-19

Wilson Nguyen
William Trono
Marios Panagiotou
Claudia P. Ostertag
2014

With the expected rehabilitation and replacement of damaged reinforced concrete bridges to occur in the next several decades, an opportunity exists to design bridge columns that have an accelerated construction schedule, which would reduce costs related to traffic closures and productivity loss, and to design columns that exhibit enhanced crack resistance, which would reduce damage from seismic events and long-term environmental degradation. This study investigates the feasibility of using a precast hybrid fiber-reinforced concrete (HyFRC) tube element as the exterior shell of a bridge...

Concrete Column Blind Prediction Contest 2010: Outcomes and Observations, PEER Report 2015-01

Vesna Terzic
Matthew J. Schoettler
Jose I. Restrepo
Stephen A. Mahin
2015

Performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) is based on the premise that the performance of engineered facilities can be predicted and evaluated with sufficient degree of confidence. However, prediction of system response greatly depends on the analyst’s experience and modeling skills. Therefore, the uncertainty with which the engineering community can predict response of a system or one of its components should be realistically quantified in PBEE. A blind prediction contest of a full-scale reinforced-concrete bridge column exposed to six consecutive unidirectional ground motions of...

A Full-Scale, Single-Column Bridge Bent Tested by Shake-Table Excitation, PEER Report 2015-02

Matthew J. Schoettler
Jose I. Restrepo
Gabriele Guerrini
David E. Duck
Francesco Carrea
2015

A landmark test of a reinforced concrete bridge column was conducted on the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation’s shake table at the University of California, San Diego. This was the first full-scale bridge column, designed to current US seismic design provisions, to be tested under dynamic conditions on a shake table. Caltrans seismic design guidelines were followed for the design and detailing of the 1.22-m- (4-ft-) diameter, 7.32-m- (24-ft-) tall column. The flexure-dominated specimen was subjected to ten significant ground motions and tested to impending...