From the preface: This volume is a collection of papers presented at the U.S. - Japan Joint Seminar on Stochastic Approaches in Earthquake Engineering held on May 6 and 7, 1987. The general theme of the two-day program was the application of probability and statistics to engineering problems related to strong ground motion. Within this general theme a great variety of subject matters were covered, including earthquake cataloging, ground motion modeling, system identification, failure mechanisms, response and reliability analyses, numerical techniques, and active control. The engineering systems considered included buildings, bridges and life-line networks.

Despite advances in the field of geotechnical earthquake engineering, earthquakes continue to cause loss of life and property in one part of the world or another. The Third International Conference on Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 22nd to 24th June 1987, provided an opportunity for participants from all over the world to share their expertise to enhance the role of mechanics and other disciplines as they relate to earthquake engineering. The edited proceedings of the conference are published in four volumes. This volume covers: Structures, Dams, Retaining Walls and Slopes, Underground Structures, and Stochastic Methods. Together with its companion volumes, it is hoped that it will contribute to the further development of techniques, methods and innovative approaches in soil dynamics and earthquake engineering.

For performance-based design, nonlinear dynamic structural analysis for various types of input ground motions is required. Stochastic (simulated) ground motions are sometimes useful as input motions, because unlike recorded motions they are not limited in number and because their properties can be varied systematically to study the impact of ground motion properties on structural response. This dissertation describes an approach by which the wavelet packet transform can be used to characterize complex time-varying earthquake ground motions, and it illustrates the potential benefits of such an approach in a variety of earthquake engineering applications. The proposed model is based on Thr´ainsson and Kiremidjian (2002), which use Fourier amplitudes and phase differences to simulate ground motions and attenuation models to their model parameters. We extend their model using wavelet packet transform since it can control the time and frequency characteristic of time series. The time- and frequency-varying properties of real ground motions can be captured using wavelet packets, so a model is developed that requires only 13 parameters to describe a given ground motion. These 13 parameters are then related to seismological variables such as earthquake magnitude, distance, and site condition, through regression analysis that captures trends in mean values, standard deviations and correlations of these parameters observed in a large database of recorded strong ground motions. The resulting regression equations then form a model that can be used to predict ground motions for a future earthquake scenario; this model is analogous to widely used empirical ground motion prediction models (formerly called "attenuation models") except that this model predicts entire time series rather than only response spectra. The ground motions produced using this predictive model are explored in detail, and are shown to have elastic response spectra, inelastic response spectra, durations, mean periods, etc., that are consistent in both mean and variability to existing published predictive models for those properties. That consistency allows the proposed model to be used in place of existing models for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) calculations. This new way to calculate PSHA is termed "simulation-based probabilistic seismic hazard analysis" and it allows a deeper understanding of ground motion hazard and hazard deaggregation than is possible with traditional PSHA because it produces a suite of potential ground motion time histories rather than simply a distribution of response spectra. The potential benefits of this approach are demonstrated and explored in detail. Taking this analysis even further, this suite of time histories can be used as input for nonlinear dynamic analysis of structures, to perform a risk analysis (i.e., "probabilistic seismic demand analysis") that allows computation of the probability of the structure exceeding some level of response in a future earthquake. These risk calculations are often performed today using small sets of scaled recorded ground motions, but that approach requires a variety of assumptions regarding important properties of ground motions, the impacts of ground motion scaling, etc. The approach proposed here facilitates examination of those assumptions, and provides a variety of other relevant information not obtainable by that traditional approach.

This book provides a new framework for analysis of slope nonlinear stochastic seismic dynamic response based on the new theoretical tool of stochastic dynamics. The coupling effects of uncertainty of geological parameters, strong dynamic nonlinearity, and randomness of ground motion are considered in the process of the seismic dynamic stability assessment of slope. In this book, an intensity frequency non-stationary stochastic ground motion model based on time-domain stochastic process description is preliminarily established to characterize the randomness of earthquakes. The spatial distribution random field model of geotechnical parameters is established to describe the time-space variability of geotechnical parameters. Based on the basic theory of stochastic dynamics, the seismic stability performance evaluation method of slope is established. The slope seismic dynamic model test based on large complex shaking table is performed to verify and modify the proposed framework and method. This book sheds new light on the development of nonlinear seismic stochastic dynamics and seismic design of slope engineering.

This book introduces new research topics in earthquake engineering through the application of computational mechanics and computer science. The topics covered discuss the evaluation of earthquake hazards such as strong ground motion and faulting through applying advanced numerical analysis methods, useful for estimating earthquake disasters. These methods, based on recent progress in solid continuum mechanics and computational mechanics, are summarized comprehensively for graduate students and researchers in earthquake engineering. The coverage includes stochastic modeling as well as several advanced computational earthquake engineering topics. Contents: Preliminaries: Solid Continuum Mechanics; Finite Element Method; Stochastic Modeling; Strong Ground Motion: The Wave Equation for Solids; Analysis of Strong Ground Motion; Simulation of Strong Ground Motion; Faulting: Elasto-Plasticity and Fracture Mechanics; Analysis of Faulting; Simulation of Faulting; BEM Simulation of Faulting; Advanced Topics: Integrated Earthquake Simulation; Unified Visualization of Earthquake Simulation; Standardization of Earthquake Resistant Design; Appendices: Earthquake Mechanisms; Analytical Mechanics; Numerical Techniques of Solving Wave Equation; Unified Modeling Language. Key Features Includes a detailed treatment of modeling of uncertain ground structures, such as stochastic modeling Explains several key numerical algorithms and techniques for solving large-scale, non-linear and dynamic problems Presents applications of methods for simulating actual strong ground motion and faulting Readership: Graduate students and researchers in earthquake engineering; researchers in computational mechanics and computer science.