Earthquake Hazard Assessments for Taipei and Corresponding Time Histories for Performance-based Geotechnical Design

Earthquake prediction is controversial given none of the result catastrophic events being successfully forecasted. On the other hand, the community of earthquake engineering generally accepts the use of seismic hazard analyses to develop site-specific earthquake-resistant designs as a practical solution to the complicated, random earthquake occurrence. Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis (DSHA) and Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) are arguably the two most representative methods in this aspect. As a result, with the two approaches this study first presents the respective estimates of seismic hazard for Taipei, the economic center of Taiwan with a six-million population as of now. Moreover, because performance-based or serviceability-state designs in earthquake engineering that are gaining more attention are usually on the basis of time-domain analyses. We, therefore, suggest the first series of site-specific earthquake time histories for this city, given the response spectra estimated with seismic hazard analyses. The time history recommendations are a result of spectrum-matching with the assistance of a reputable database managed by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center.