Nepal Journal of Civil Engineering

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Spectral Matching Procedure in Frequency Domain;

A case study for Nepalese Design Spectra.
Rupesh Uprety a , Pradej Badal b
aGraduate Earthquake Engineering Student,Tribhuwan University, Institute of Engineering, Thapathali Campus
bGraduate Earthquake Engineering Student,Tribhuwan University, Institute of Engineering, Thapathali Campus
Corresponding Email: a 070bce132@pcampus.edu.np, b 070bce097.pradej@pcampus.edu.np

Abstract
Nonlinear time-history analysis is a relatively new and more realistic procedure for seismic analysis and
design of structures. The very first step in performing a nonlinear time-history analysis is to perform spectral
matching. It is primarily done to match the response spectrum of an actual earthquake time history data to
code based designed spectrum that is obtained from the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. Thus generated
synthetic time history record is further used in performing the nonlinear time-history analysis of structures.
The spectral matching procedure can be done either in time domain or the frequency domain. Here, we focus
on the frequency domain approach to spectral matching by taking real accelerograms and study how well the
response spectrum matches to the design spectrum. The complete procedure is carried out by writing a code
in MATLAB.
Keywords
Fourier Transform, Inverse Fourier Transform, Frequency Domain, Synthetic Time History

1. Introduction seismic zoning factor as 0.36.

Spectral matching is performed in time domain or

frequency domain in three ways(Fahjan, 2008); the
spectral acceleration values of the selected time
history is simply scaled up or down; an actual motion
is converted to frequency domain to perform the
spectral matching with target spectrum; elementary
wavelets are added or subtracted from the real time
history to match a target design spectrum, for
example,RSMATCH developed by Abrahamson
(Abrahamson, 1993).The main advantage of wavelet
method over frequency domain method for spectral
matching is that there is no drift obtained in the
velocity and displacement time-history at the end of
matching. Frequency Domain method however
produces significant drift in the displacement and
velocity time-history(Shahbazian and Pezeshk,
2010).For our purpose of studying the spectral
matching procedure in frequency domain, a response
spectrum plot is generated at first using the Newmark
average acceleration method(Chopra, 2007). Then a
target spectrum is set as per Nepalese design
code,NBC 105:2020, to match the real earthquake
accelerogram. Target spectrum is selected for soil
type III which is the typical nature of the soil in
Kathmandu city, taking importance factor as 1.5 and
2. Ground Motion Selection
The matching procedure was studied by selecting
varieties of earthquake accelerograms ranging from
low frequency content to high frequency content as
well as that of near field and far field. Here, we opted
the accelerogram from Landers Earthquake having
high frequency content and Hollister earthquake
having low frequency content. Similarly, Ridge crest
earthquake with near field acceleration data recorded
at China lake station and far field acceleration data
recorded at Arvin station was chosen.
The above mentioned earthquake time histories are
plotted and their salient features are listed in table
Table 1;
Figure 1: Landers Earthquake

Pages: 1 – 5
Spectral Matching Procedure in Frequency Domain;
A case study for Nepalese Design Spectra.

interest. The period range of 0.2T to 1.5T is

specified(ASCE, 2013), where T is the fundamental
time period of the structure. While matching the
spectrum at the fundamental time period of the
(T 1)
Figure 2: Hollister Earthquake structure, spectral ratio, α = SSda (T 1) is calculated where
T1 is the fundamental time period of structure, Sd is
the design spectral acceleration ordinate at T1, Sa is
the response spectrum ordinate at T1. The new
modified time history data is simply obtained by
linearly scaling the actual data by the spectral ratio at
T1. While matching over a specified range, the
procedure is simply based on minimizing the
Figure 3: Ridge Crest Earthquake recorded at near
difference between the scaled spectrum and target
field
spectrum in a least square sense(Fahjan, 2008).

Z Tb
|Di f f erence| = [αSa (T ) − Sd (T )]2 dT (1)
Ta
were,
Ta = Lower limit of matching Period
Figure 4: Ridge Crest Earthquake recorded at far field Tb = Upper limit of matching Period
α = scaling factor
Sa = Acceleration response spectrum of the given time-
Table 1: Salient Feature of Groundmotions selected history
Earthquake Recording PGA(g) Sd = Design response spectrum
SN Mw
Name Station Value
Landers 000 SCE d|di f f erence|
1 7.3 0.78 min|Di f f erence| = (2)
Earthquake station 24 dα
Now, From equation 1 and 2,
USGS
Hollister
2 station 5.2 0.19
Earthquake T
∑Tb=Ta (Sa − Sd )
1028
α= T (3)
∑Tb=Ta (Sa2 )
Ridge Crest China
3 Earthquake Lake 7.1 0.32
3.2 Frequency Domain
(near field) Station
In the frequency domain spectral matching procedure,
Ridge Crest an actual ground motion is first converted from time
Arvin
4 Earthquake 7.1 0.012 domain to frequency domain using the Fourier
Station
(far field) transform. Fourier amplitude is then multiplied with
the ratio of spectral ordinates at each frequency point
of the Fourier spectra to obtain new Fourier
3. Different Method of Ground motion amplitude(Ferreira et al., 2020). Modified
Scaling time-history is finally generated by performing the
inverse Fourier transform of the newly obtained
3.1 Time domain Fourier amplitude. This is an iterative procedure and
the iteration is carried out until desire accuracy in
In this method, the ground motion record is simply
matching is obtained. In this method of spectral
scaled up or down to meet the target spectrum either
matching, the frequency content and the Fourier phase
at a specific time period viz. the fundamental time
remain unchanged.
period of structure which is suitable for a first mode
dominant structures or over a specified range of The steps can be listed as follows

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 Nepal Journal of Civil Engineering

1. A MATLAB code is written to generate

response spectrum for the selected ground
motion. Also, the target spectrum as per NBC
105:2020 is defined for soil type III.

2. The desired number of iterations that the user Figure 6: Landers Earthquake (10 Iterations)
wants to perform is given as an input in the
program.

3. Fourier Transform is done to determine the

frequency content of the given ground motion.

4. For all the frequencies, the ratio of design

spectral acceleration to the actual spectral Figure 7: Hollister Earthquake
acceleration is determined and multiplied to the
Fourier amplitude to obtain the modified
Fourier amplitude.

Si
FT i+1 = FT i ∗ Sdi
a

5. An inverse Fourier Transform of the Fourier

amplitude is done to obtain the modified Figure 8: Hollister Earthquake (10 Iterations)
accelerogram values in time domain and the
new response spectrum is generated for
modified time history.

6. Step 4 and 5 are iterative procedures which are

performed for the desired number of iterations
until fair accuracy is obtained in the spectral
matching procedure.
Figure 9: Ridge Crest Earthquake recorded at near
field
4. Results
The results obtained from the matching procedure for
different earthquakes selected are shown below. The
original time history, along with the final synthetic
time history obtained after performing the spectral
matching, is shown.Target spectrum selected
corresponds to NBC 105:2020 for site type III and
importance factor 1.5.The matching is performed in Figure 10: Ridge Crest Earthquake recorded at near
10 iterations for all the earthquake groundmotions. field (10 Iterations)
The final match obtained after 10 iterations is shown
for each groundmotions along with the target
spectrum and initial response spectrum.

Figure 11: Ridge Crest Earthquake recorded at far

Figure 5: Landers Earthquake field

3
Spectral Matching Procedure in Frequency Domain;
A case study for Nepalese Design Spectra.
Figure 12: Ridge Crest Earthquake recorded at far
field (10 Iterations)
Figure 13: Landers Earthquake Spectral Matching
Figure 14: Hollister Earthquake Spectral Matching
Figure 15: Ridge Crest Earthquake (recorded near
field) Spectral Matching
4
Figure 16: Ridge Crest Earthquake (recorded far
field) Spectral Matching
5. Conclusion
The matching procedure was carried out for above
listed earthquake using a self-written MATLAB code.
The result obtained can be explained as below;
1. For an earthquake with high frequency content,
(ex.Landers Earthquake) the matching came out
to be in good agreement with the design
spectrum and especially for larger period, the
matched spectrum and the design spectrum
overlapped. However, in the case of earthquake
with low frequency content, (ex.Hollister
Earthquake) the matched spectrum was little bit
deviated from the design spectrum with many
ups and downs compared to the design
spectrum.
2. In case of near field and far field earthquake, the
matched spectrum came in good agreement for
a higher time periods whereas for low periods,
the matched spectrum was comparatively more
deviated from the design spectrum .
We can thus conclude that the frequency domain
spectral matching may be applied to earthquake time
history with high frequency content and for an
earthquake time history with low frequency content, a
more advanced approach called wavelet based spectral
matching approach namely RSMATCH developed by
Abrahamson (Abrahamson, 1993) may be used.
Similarly, if the matching is done for earthquake time
histories of extremities(very near and too far),
frequency domain method generates a good match for
high period range whereas the matching is
comparatively not so good for low period range.In the
later case, wavelet based method may be adopted.

References
Abrahamson, N. (1993). Non-stationary spectral
matching program, RSPMATCH, User Manual .
ASCE (2013). Minimum design loads for buildings
and other structures, American Society of Civil
Engineers.
Chopra, A. K. (2007). Dynamics of structures, Pearson
Education India.
Fahjan, Y. M. (2008). Selection and scaling of real
earthquake accelerograms to fit the turkish design
spectra, Teknik Dergi 19(3): 4423–4444.
Nepal Journal of Civil Engineering
Ferreira, F., Moutinho, C., Cunha, Á. and Caetano,
E. (2020). An artificial accelerogram generator
code written in matlab, Engineering Reports
2(3): e12129.
Shahbazian, A. and Pezeshk, S. (2010). Improved
velocity and displacement time histories in
frequency domain spectral-matching procedures,
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
100(6): 3213–3223.