A new region-specific empirical model for prediction of ground motion significant duration in Turkey

Ground motion amplitude, frequency content, and duration are commonly identified as the main features of seismic waves affecting structural demand. Among these parameters, earthquake duration can have a substantial influence on assessment of structural seismic demand. The paper proposes a new empirical model for predicting the significant duration of ground-motion records in Turkey. Significant duration is an important parameter in determining the damage potential of earthquakes and is defined as the time interval between two specific values of Arias intensity. The proposed model is as function of moment magnitude ( M_w ), Joyner-Boore distance ( R_jb ), time-averaged shear-wave velocity in the top 30 m ( V_S30 ), and fault mechanism ( F_m ). In the regression process, a database consisting of 850 records from 408 earthquakes in Turkey is used. According to the physics of the problem, mixed effect regression is employed. Next, besides residual analysis, comparison of the mean values with the other prediction models are performed. The results of this study indicate that the new model is satisfactory while reliable estimates of significant duration could be assessed for the Turkish region.