Probabilistic characterization of the directionality of horizontal earthquake response spectra

Abstract Earthquake response spectral ordinates vary significantly with changes in orientation within the horizontal plane. This variation is characterized probabilistically in this study using a large database of recorded earthquake ground motions. For each ground motion record, response spectral ordinates are computed in all horizontal orientations as a function of the rotation angle with respect to the azimuth of maximum response and then normalized by (1) the maximum and (2) the median spectral ordinate from all these orientations. Nonlinear regression models are then fitted to the means, standard deviations, and correlations of both ratios, as a function of rotation angle. To achieve a more complete probabilistic description, probability distributions are fitted to both ratios at each rotation angle. These results can be used for several probabilistic seismic hazard computations, such as the sampling of response spectral ordinates at specific orientations within the same site.