How Different Scaling and Matching Approaches Affect the Base Shear?

Proper selecting and scaling of earthquake data are very important to obtain an accurate input which is compatible with the target spectrum for the dynamic analysis of the structures. In this study, six sets of earthquake data were selected where each set contained 11 earthquakes. Magnitude, site conditions, fault mechanisms as well as the distance from the faults are considered as the selection criteria. Then, the selected earthquake data were scaled in three different methods, mainly, time domain scaling, spectral matching in frequency domain and spectral matching in time domain. The scaled data was used to perform the time history analysis on a 5-storey and 11 storey reinforced concrete buildings located in Turkey. At the end, the results are compared with respect to the engineering demand parameter (base shear). As expected, the results are affected with respect to fault mechanism and distance. The highest predicted lateral force on the base of the system due to seismic loads is calculated based on the method, spectral matching in frequency domain.