A Generalized Conditional Mean Spectrum and Its Application for Intensity-Based Assessments of Seismic Demands

When the response of a structure is influenced significantly by multiple vibration modes, the seismic demands determined by response history analyses with ground motions selected to match a single conditional mean spectrum (CMS) may be unconservative for several response quantities. An existing solution to this problem is to determine the demand as the maximum of mean demands from several CMSs. To reduce the computational effort while maintaining accuracy and precision, we introduce an alternative engineering solution that is based on a simplified version of the generalized CMS, where two specified conditioning spectral accelerations share a common hazard level. vector-valued disaggregation is developed herein to provide a single earthquake scenario for the target spectrum. The results from a realistic case study suggest that the proposed spectrum provides seismic demands that are as accurate and precise as those obtained from analyzing the structure with multiple CMSs while simultaneously reducing the computational effort by a factor of 2 or more.