Jack W. Baker

Ground-motion prediction (attenuation) models predict the probability distributions of spectral acceleration values for a specified earthquake event. In this article a large number of strong ground motions are used to empirically estimate these correlations, and nonlinear regression is used to develop approximate analytical equations for their evaluation.

The commonly used Uniform Hazard Spectrum (UHS) is shown here to be an unsuitable target for this purpose, as it conservatively implies that large-amplitude spectral values will occur at all periods within a single ground motion. An alternative, termed a Conditional Mean Spectrum (CMS), is presented here.

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