ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Protection of lives and mitigation of seismic damage are primarily achieved through adequate seismic provisions in the national building codes. The current provisions specify a seismic load level for structural design based on a uniform-hazard elastic response spectrum, which is obtained from probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. Although the majority of uncertain aspects are taken into account in probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, variability associated with the orientation of ground motion measures, which is treated ambiguously in the national building codes, can be an important factor in assessing reliability of engineered structures. In particular, the orientation effects due to directivity-pulse of near-fault ground motions are significant (Tothong et al., 2007).
