Near-fault ground motions containing strong velocity pulses are of interest in the fields of seismology and earthquake engineering. Sites located in the vicinity of seismic faults may experience ground motions with the effect of forward directivity, causing most of the seismic energy in a single pulse registered early in the velocity history. | JSEE Vol. 19, No. 1, 2017 Quantitative Evaluation of Near-Fault Records Generated via Wavelet Transform Amin Gholizad1 and Arash Pursadrollah 2* 1. Associate Professor, Engineering Department, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili Ardabil, Iran, *Corresponding Author; email: gholizad@ 2. . Student, Engineering Department, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil Received: 16/03/2015 Accepted: 03/01/2017 ABSTRACT Keywords: Wavelet transform; Artificial ground motion; Near-fault earthquakes; Spectrum-matching Nonlinear time-history analysis is becoming more common in seismic analysis and design of structures. The key issue in performing this kind of analysis is the appropriate input ground motion. Many engineers select recorded motions from locations other than the project site and modify them by scaling or spectrum matching. A wavelet-based procedure has been used to generate ground motions that are design spectrum compatible. Near-fault ground motions containing strong velocity pulses are of interest in the fields of seismology and earthquake engineering. Sites located in the vicinity of seismic faults may experience ground motions with the effect of forward directivity, causing most of the seismic energy in a single pulse registered early in the velocity history. Baker introduced a quantitative way to distinguish and classify this kind of records. The principle purpose of this article is to survey generating spectrum-compatible time-histories for near-fault via wavelet transform by Baker’s method. 1. Introduction For seismic design of critical structures such as power plants, dams, tall buildings, and cablestayed bridges in seismically active regions, the final design is usually based on a complete timehistory analysis. It is difficult and nearly impossible in some cases to choose a proper record for design area when the recorded and processed accelerograms of the design location are few. Many engineers select recorded motions from locations other
