Journal of Seismology 6: 547–555, 2002.

© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

547

Derivation of design soil coefficients (S) and response spectral shapes for
Eurocode 8 using the European Strong-Motion Database

Julien Rey1 , Ezio Faccioli1,∗ & Julian J. Bommer2

1 Presently
at Cénergy/IRSN 60–68 Avenue du Général Leclerc, 92265 Fontenay-aux-Roses Cedex, France;
2 Departmentof Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College, London SW7 2BU, UK; ∗ Author for
correspondence: tel: 39–02–23994337, e-mail: faccioli@stru.polimi.it

Received 19 June 2002; accepted in revised form 19 November 2001

Key words: acceleration response spectra, Eurocode 8, European Strong-Motion Database, local site conditions,
soil coefficients, spectral shapes, spectral ratios, Housner Spectrum Intensity

Abstract
A revision is presently under way to upgrade the status of the ‘Design recommendations for earthquake resistance
of structures’, commonly referred to as Eurocode 8 (or EC8). In order to improve the definition of the design elastic
response spectra (ERS) as defined in the Eurocode 8 – Part 1 (Draft May 2001), the values of the soil amplification
factors have been calculated for sites on sedimentary soils, both stiff (category B) and soft (category C), with
respect to rock sites (category A), such as contemplated in EC8. The work was performed by a systematic study of
response spectra as a function of magnitude and site conditions, using records from the European Strong-Motion
Database. The results confirm the occurrence of systematic spectral amplification on sedimentary soils with respect
to reference rock in a large set of European strong motion data. Such amplification has been quantified through a
measure derived from the Housner Spectrum Intensity definition. The values of the soil coefficients recommended
in the current version of EC 8 are shown to be realistic for category C, in the case of a moderate seismicity context.
However the values for subsoil class B need to be significantly increased both for the moderate and high seismicity
context.

Introduction used that imply different ratios of soil-to-rock spectral

A revision is presently under way that will upgrade
the status of the ‘Design recommendations for earth-
quake resistance of structures’, commonly referred to
as Eurocode 8 (or EC8), to that of a European norm.
The process is due to end in late 2002. The revision
entails a number of significant changes and updates
with respect to the current version (1994), including
a new definition of the design elastic response spectra
(ERS) and a new classification of site conditions, or
‘classes of soil profile’ (CEN, 2001).
The influence of site conditions on the design seis-
mic action is taken into account in EC8 both through
differences in the ERS shape and through a frequency-
independent amplification coefficient S, called ‘soil
coefficient’. In other seismic codes, e.g. the Uni-
form Building Code (UBC 97), two parameters are
amplitudes.
The 1994 version of EC8, due to the lack of ad
hoc supporting studies, specified S = 1 for rock and
stiff soil profiles but S = 0.9 for softer soil deposits. At
an earlier stage of the present revision process some
preliminary estimates of S-values have been made, de-
rived from amplification factors of the ground motion
attenuation relations for European data by averaging
over significant ranges of the vibration period. In this
work we illustrate a more rigorous approach to the es-
timation of the S coefficients for Eurocode 8 based on
a systematic analysis of response spectra ordinates as a
function of magnitude and site conditions, in conjunc-
tion with the definition of the new ERS shapes. The
basic data are acceleration records from the European
Strong-Motion Database.
548
Table 1. Classification of ground conditions
Ground type Vs,30 Subsoil class in EC8 Vs,30
(Boore et al., 1993) (m/s) (CEN, 2001) (m/s)
Rock > 750 A > 800
Stiff soil 360–750 B 360–800
Soft soil 180–360 C 180–360
Very soft soil < 180 D < 180
Data selection
The primary source of data was the European Strong-
Motion Database, or ESD (Ambraseys et al., 2000),
which contains a set of 1068 uncorrected and uni-
formly corrected three-component strong-motion re-
cords and response spectra from Europe and adjacent
regions (mainly Turkey and Iran), coming from 432
earthquakes and 376 stations. For each record, in-
formation is provided on the earthquake (magnitude,
location, focal mechanism) and on the accelerograph
station (location, distance to epicentre or to causative
fault, soil conditions). Independent additional data on
the site characteristics of a number of recording sta-
tions, specifically concerning the profile of the S wave
propagation velocity VS with depth, were obtained
from a number of sources including:
– for selected Italian strong-motion sites, the per-
sonal data files of E. Faccioli (for the most part
originally provided by ENEL, the national Electri-
city Board of Italy, in the form of internal or even
confidential technical reports, see also Faccioli,
1992),
– for selected Greek sites, a data file expressly
provided by K. Pitilakis (2000, personal written
communication to E. Faccioli), of the University
of Thessaloniki, as well as an article by Gazetas et
al. (1990),
– for selected Montenegro sites, recording the
strong 1980 Montenegro earthquake, an article by
Talaganov et al. (1982).
The stations for which we could obtain the Vs profile
are listed in the Appendix.
Local site conditions
For many of the recording stations in the ESD the
site conditions are loosely defined, for instance ‘allu-
vium’, or unknown. For the vast number of stations
which have a supposedly reliable site classification,
including those listed in the Appendix, the measured
or estimated average shear-wave velocity Vs to a depth
of 30 m (Vs,30), as shown in the first two columns of
Table 1, was used as site descriptor following earlier
studies (Boore et al., 1993). As indicated in the last
two columns of Table 1, this approach is adopted with
slight modifications also in the updated version of
EC 8 (CEN, 2001); in the latter document, however,
ranges of the NSPT blowcount and of the undrained
shear resistance cu are also used as descriptors of
the soil class and, moreover, three additional ‘subsoil
classes’ (denoted as E, S1 and S2) are provided.
Herein, we used only three categories of ground
conditions, i.e. ‘rock’, ‘stiff soil’, and ‘soft soil’ ac-
cording to the last column of Table 1. Indeed, only 3
stations on ‘very soft soil’ conditions are included in
the ESD, and no record of these stations was retained
for the analysis. We excluded data from a particular ac-
celerograph station on rock (Nocera Umbra, in Central
Italy) present with several records in the ESD, con-
sistently exhibiting strong site amplification effects;
detailed recent studies indicate that the latter are prob-
ably due to lateral heterogeneity related to a nearby
fault zone (Marra et al., 2000).
In the ESD, there are 73 stations on rock, 61 on
stiff soil and 36 on soft soil. Moreover, for 16 Italian
stations, 11 Greek stations and 4 stations from former
Yugoslavia the Vs profile has been retrieved as pre-
viously described. Concerning these data, the table
in the Appendix shows that only three station sites
were identified as misclassified in the original ESD
while for four more the site conditions were previ-
ously unknown. This suggests that our results should
not be significantly biased by wrong site attributions
in the original database, but a larger sample of well
documented stations would be required to draw more
reliable quantitative indications. The sample size for
the different site conditions is shown Table 2. Only
records from stations with known soil conditions were
used.
Magnitude
The magnitude of each earthquake of the database is
reported in the ESD: it can be either moment mag-
nitude Mw, or surface-wave magnitude Ms, or local
magnitude ML , or body-wave magnitude mb . Ms
has been used here as much as possible (161 earth-
quakes), being probably the most appropriate scale
for the range at study (4.0<M<6.8, only the Au-
gust 1999 Turkey earthquake with Ms 7.8 is beyond

Table 2. Number of horizontal accelerograms as a function of magnitude and site
conditions
4.0<M<4.5 4.5<M<5.0
Rock 72 (2) 86 (8)
Stiff soil 68 (20) 67 (17)
Soft soil 37 (14) 37 (12)
In parentheses, the number of records from stations with a geotechnical description, listed
in the Appendix.
this range). ML was also used for 15 earthquakes in
the range where MS ≈ ML (4.5<M<5.5, see Ambra-
seys and Bommer (1990)), and MW for 2 earthquakes
whose magnitudes were in the range where MS ≈ MW
(6.0<M<7.0, see Ambraseys & Free, 1997). To limit
dispersion, it was chosen to use only records from
earthquakes with M>4.0.
Since it was one of the primary goals of this study
to investigate the dependence of estimated S factors
on magnitude, the full magnitude range covered by
the data was subdivided into the five equal intervals
shown in Table 2. As explained in a later section, in the
EC8 update the dependence of spectral shapes and S
factors on magnitude is accounted for by means of two
types of spectra corresponding to different magnitude
ranges.
Other restrictions
Data recorded at no further than 50 km epicentral or
fault distance from the accelerograph station were con-
sidered here, to retain only motions of engineering
interest. Also, the analysis was restricted to horizontal
motions, so that only the horizontal components of
each record were kept. The two horizontal components
were almost systematically used.
Method of analysis and first-stage results
A first stage of data processing was carried out in the
following steps:
1. 5% damped acceleration response spectra were
saved and sorted for all the records of the ESD
databank selected by the previous criteria.
2. Spectral ordinates Sa (T) for 121 values of the
vibration period T (from 0.04 to 4.0 s, equally
spaced on log scale) were multiplied by the dis-
tance R between station and rupturing fault, or
by epicentral distance when the former was not
549
5.0<M<5.5 5.5<M<6.0 6.0<M
78 (4) 72 (5) 29 (14)
66 (16) 64 (24)44 (28)
41 (10) 41 (10)20 (6)
available. Such distance normalisation is suppor-
ted by the evidence of attenuation relations, which
show that response spectral accelerations are con-
sistently proportional to the distance elevated to
an exponent close to –1. Thus, shapes of spectra
do not appreciably change with distance (Bommer
and Scott, 2000).
3. The log average and standard deviation of norm-
alised spectral ordinates RSa (T) were calculated
and plotted in each category of soil condition and
interval of magnitude.
A sample plot resulting after this first stage of the data
processing is illustrated in Figure 1.
Since the ‘soft soil’ and the ‘stiff soil’ curves lie
consistently above the ‘rock’ curve in the figure, and
the same was found for other magnitude intervals, it
makes sense to estimate in a simple manner the av-
erage amplification due to the material properties of
the sediments with respect to rock through a single
period-independent factor.
Such estimation has been carried out as a second
step, by the following procedure. The average norm-
alised spectral curves for each ground category were
integrated in the range of periods between 0.05 and
2.5 s. Then, for each magnitude interval we calculated
the Spectrum Intensities IA = IRock , IB = ISt iff , IC =
ISof t , originally defined by Housner (1952) for re-
sponse spectral velocities, and which we have adapted
for spectral accelerations. The calculated quantities
are specifically

2.5
IA,B,C = RSA (T )dT (1)
0.05
where the quantity with the overbar under the integral
denotes the average normalised spectral curve for each
site category A, B, C, and for each magnitude interval.
Sensitivity tests performed with different integration
limits confirmed that the interval of periods for which
the results seem to be most stable is from 0.05 s to
2.5 s.
550

Figure 1. Mean, distance-normalised acceleration response spectra for earthquakes with 5.0≤M<5.5 (bottom curves) and with M>6.0 (top
curves). The shading in the upper part corresponds to the region between the mean and the mean +1 standard deviation band for the normalised
rock spectrum.

Table 3. Set of soil coefficients S obtained for the selected magnitude intervals

Soil factor 4.0<M<4.5 4.5<M<5.0 5.0<M<5.5 5.5<M<6.0 6.0<M

SB 1.38 1.15 1.52 1.39 1.38

SC 1.22 1.16 1.74 1.27 1.49

Finally, we calculated for each magnitude interval
the ratios SB = IB /IA and SC = IC /IA which provide
a scaling factor for the site effect that evidently rep-
resents an average amplification global affecting the
whole spectrum. The results, given in Table 3, in-
dicate a fairly stable behaviour of SB with respect
to magnitude, but a nearly random behaviour of SC .
This difference could be both related to the consist-
ently larger size of the ‘stiff soil’ data samples, and to
larger uncertainties in the attribution of a number of
recording stations to the ‘soft soil’ class.
Given the lack of apparent trends of the SB and
SC values with respect to magnitude, we decided to
restrict our focus on two classes of magnitude only,
considered to be representative of the two seismicity
contexts defined in EC 8, discussed at the beginning
of next section. More specifically, we chose the mag-
nitude range between 4.5 and 5.5 as representative
of the low and moderate seismicity context (Type 2
 551

Figure 2. Class A sites, Type 1 Spectrum and average normalised Figure 3. Class A sites, Type 2 Spectrum and average normalised
spectrum from 5 European accelerograms. spectrum from 9 European accelerograms.

Spectrum), and the range greater than 6.0 as represent-

ative of the high seismicity context (Type 1 Spectrum).
The magnitude range between 5.5 and 6.0, being a
transition between the two previous ranges, was left
aside.

Spectral shapes in Eurocode 8 and spectral shape

ratios

In order to avoid overestimation of spectral ordinates

in those areas of Europe affected only by moder-
ate magnitude earthquakes, whilst still only mapping Figure 4. Class B sites, Type 1 Spectrum and average normalised
a single ground-motion parameter (peak horizontal spectrum from 8 European accelerograms.
ground acceleration, or PGA), the revised version of
EC8 has introduced the option of using two spectral
of the two. Each envelope spectrum was then norm-
shapes.
alised to the larger of the two values of PGA. The
The Type 2 spectrum is for those regions where
final shape used was the average of these normalised
maximum magnitudes are not expected to exceed M s
spectra for each soil class and each type of spectrum
5.5–6.0 (moderate seismicity context). The Type 1
(I or II). Figures 2–7 show examples of how the spec-
spectrum is for regions where maximum magnitudes
are expected to exceed M s 5.5–6.0 (high seismi-
city context). The general shapes, independent of the
actual amplification factors, have been fixed using
European strong-motion records grouped according to
the new EC8 soil classification scheme, including the
four categories listed in Table 1 plus category E, ap-
plicable to shallow alluvium underlain by class A or B
materials. The site classifications for the recording sta-
tions have been taken from the sources already quoted
under data selection.
The spectral shapes were confirmed by first creat-
ing the envelope spectrum for 5% damping from the
two horizontal components from each record (nearly
all of them had both horizontal components). This Figure 5. Class B sites, Type 2 Spectrum and average normalised
means that at every period, the ordinate was the larger spectrum from 24 European accelerograms.
552
Figure 6. Class C sites, Type 1 Spectrum and average normalised
spectrum from 11 European accelerograms.
Figure 7. Class C sites, Type 2 Spectrum and average normalised
spectrum from 10 European accelerograms.
tral shapes were fixed from the normalised, average
spectra grouped by site classification and earthquake
magnitude.
The ordinates of the Type 2 spectrum for Class C
sites in Figure 7 do not provide a satisfactory fit to the
average spectrum obtained by enveloping the spectra
of 10 accelerograms recorded in 7 earthquakes. The
available data for this case was limited: 5 out of the
10 records come from two Italian earthquakes of Ms
5.4 that occurred in 1984, all obtained at distances
greater than 30 km. Two of the these records are from
the Garigliano site, at 50 km, and their spectra have
a dominant period close to 0.5 seconds. In order to
employ a larger data set, in which no individual earth-
quake would be so dominant, other records were used,
only one of which came from an earthquake that was
strictly within the definition of the Type 2 spectrum
of being applicable for magnitudes less than or equal
to 5.5. The other four of the records came from two
M s 5.6 events and others of M s 5.7 and 5.8. For some
of the stations from which records in this group were
selected there is an element of uncertainty regarding
the classification. All of these considerations led to the
decision to maintain the corner period (TC ) ending the
acceleration plateau at 0.25 seconds, although there
may be a case to increase TC for Type 2 spectra for the
softer soil classes. Currently there is not sufficient data
to justify changes for these classes, but it is recommen-
ded that the EC8 Committee review these spectra in
the future when more high-quality accelerograms from
small magnitude earthquakes recorded at soft sites are
available.
It is evident that the previously calculated coeffi-
cients IA and IB , take into account the amplification
related to the increase of ordinates of soil spectra with
respect to rock spectra, but also a contribution due the
change in shape of these spectra when they are con-
strained to have the same ordinate at zero period. As
is well known, average spectra for increasingly softer
soils differ from those on rock because the plateau, or
significant spectral band, becomes larger and shifted
towards greater periods (see also Figures 2–7). This
introduces a factor that reflects only the difference
between spectral shapes, and can therefore be called
‘spectral shape ratio’ (SR). This factor is adequately
taken into account in the definition of the spectral
shapes of EC8 (CEN, 2001), illustrated together in
Figure 8.
The figure makes it clear that, even if the three
spectra have the same coefficient S (in this case equal
to 1), the value of the Spectral Intensity for the soil
sites would be greater than for rock.
Thus, the coefficients Isoil/Irock previously determ-
ined can be represented as the product of the ‘true’
soil amplification coefficient S by the associated shape
ratio as previously defined, or
Isoil /Irock = S ∗ SR (2)
Recommendations for Eurocode 8 and conclusions
The distance-normalised spectra for the three con-
sidered types of ground conditions and for the two
broader seismicity contexts of Eurocode 8 have been
analysed to determine the ratios Isoil /Irock already
discussed, and the S and SR coefficients just defined.
The distance-normalised average spectra calcu-
lated from the present dataset were then carefully
compared with EC 8 spectra (CEN, 2001); the control
periods were found to be reasonably consistent for the
two sets of spectra, so that it could be assumed that the
EC8 spectral shape ratios are also representative of the
present dataset spectra.
 553

Figure 8. Elastic normalised response spectra defined in Eurocode 8 for Type 1 (CEN, 2001).

Table 4. Soil coefficients and spectral shape ratios proposed by

Eurocode 8 (CEN 2001) for Spectrum Types 1 and 2
We note that for subsoil class C the S value from
this study coincides with the current EC 8 value for
Eurocode 8 Type 2 Type 1 Type 2 spectra. This is not so for Type 1, possibly
S SR S SR because of non-linear soil response effects: the present
value is significantly lower than that of Eurocode 8.
SB 1.20 1.00 1.10 1.15
For subsoil class B our results are significantly higher
SC 1.50 0.99 1.35 1.27
than those indicated in the current EC 8 update. On the
other hand, the S value for subsoil class A remains 1
for both Type 1 and 2 spectra.
Simpson (1996) has used essentially the same ori-
Table 5. Values of soil coefficient S obtained in this study and
proposed in Eurocode 8 (CEN, 2001) ginal European strong-motion dataset to estimate site
coefficients in attenuation relations for spectral ordin-
This study Eurocode 8 ates. His results cannot be directly compared with
Calculated Recommended (CEN, 2001) those of this study because he did not introduce mag-
nitude range subdivisions for Ms >4 in his work, and
SB (Type 1) 1.21 1.20 1.10
SB (Type 2) 1.34 1.35 1.20
the classification of site conditions at the recording
SC (Type 1) 1.15 1.15 1.35 stations has been broadly improved in our study. How-
SC (Type 2) 1.47 1.50 1.50 ever, if we calculate the average value of site coeffi-
cients for soft and stiff soil for periods between 0.1 and
0.5 s in Simpson’s attenuation relations, we obtain, for
Ms >4, values of SB = 1.36 and SC = 1.37. These val-
ues are closely comparable with the weighted average
Then, the actual soil coefficients S were determ- of S coefficients shown in Table 3, which are 1.35 and
ined using (2), i.e. dividing the Isoil /Irock ratios by the 1.36 respectively for SB and SC .
spectral shape ratios SR of the EC 8 spectra, given in In conclusion, this study confirms the occurrence
Table 4. The results obtained are shown in Table 5 of systematic spectral amplification in the case of
and can be compared with the current soil factors of sedimentary soils with respect to reference rock in
Eurocode 8 (CEN, May 2001). a large set of European strong motion data. Such
554
amplification has been quantified through a measure
strictly related to the Spectrum Intensity definition of
Housner.
The values of the soil coefficients indicated in the
current version of Eurocode 8 – Part 1 (draft May
2001) are shown to be realistic for Category C, Type
2 spectra. However the S values for Subsoil class B
need to be significantly increased both for Type 1 and
2 Spectra.
Acknowledgements
The authors are deeply grateful to K. Pitilakis for the
soil profiles at the Greek aceelerograph stations. G.
Gazetas kindly provided the data of the Ionianet ac-
celerograph array in Kefalonia island. The authors also
wish to acknowledge the contribution of all members
of EC8 Project Team PT1, to whose endeavours this
study is a central contribution, for stimulating and use-
ful discussions on the issues related to the definition of
the ERS.
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 555

Appendix

List of accelerograph station in European Strong-Motion Database (ESD) for which the
VS profile (or other geotechnical characterisation) has been obtained.
Name of the station Country No. of earthq. Original ESD site Revised site
recorded classification classification

Aigio-OTE Building∗ Greece 5 stiff soil stiff soil

Argostoli-OTE Building∗ Greece 1 stiff soil stiff soil
Bagnoli-Irpino Italy 2 rock rock
Bar-Skupstina Opstine∗∗ Yugoslavia 4 stiff soil stiff soil
Benevento Italy 1 stiff soil stiff soil
Bisaccia Italy 1 stiff soil stiff soil
Bolu-Bayindirlik ve Iskan Mud. (+) Turkey 1 unknown soft soil
Bovino Italy 1 stiff soil stiff soil
Breginj-Fabrika IGLI Slovenia 4 stiff soil stiff soil
Brienza Italy 3 stiff soil stiff soil
Buia Italy 5 soft soil soft soil
Calitri Italy 1 stiff soil stiff soil
Codroipo Italy 3 stiff soil stiff soil
Duzce-Meteoroloji Mudurlugu (+) Turkey 2 unknown soft soil
Forgaria-Cornino Italy 12 stiff soil stiff soil
Gebze-Tubitak Marmara (+) Turkey 1 unknown rock
Herceg Novi-O.S. D. Pavicic∗∗ Yugoslavia 2 rock rock
Kalamata-OTE Building∗ Greece 2 stiff soil soft soil
Kalamata-Prefecture∗ Greece 3 stiff soil stiff soil
Kefalonia (EF4)∗∗∗ Greece 3 – rock
Kefalonia (EF2)∗∗∗ Greece 3 – soft soil
Kyparrisia-OTE Building∗ Greece 1 rock rock
Lefkada-Hospital∗∗ Greece 3 soft soil soft soil
Lefkada-OTE Building∗ Greece 10 soft soil soft soil
Mercato San Severino Italy 1 soft soil soft soil
Patra-OTE Building∗ Greece 6 ‘alluvium’ soft soil
Petrovac-Hotel Oliva∗∗ Yugoslavia 3 stiff soil stiff soil
Rionero in Vulture Italy 4 rock rock
Robic Slovenia 2 rock rock
Sakarya-Bayindirlik Iskan Mud. (+) Turkey 1 stiff soil stiff soil
San Giorgio la Molara Italy 1 rock rock
San Rocco Italy 6 soft soil rock
Sturno Italy 2 rock rock
Tarcento Italy 4 soft soil rock
Thessaloniki-City Hotel∗ Greece 2 soft soil soft soil
Tolmezzo-Diga Ambiesta Italy 8 rock rock
Ulcinj-Hotel Albatros∗∗ Yugoslavia 4 rock rock
Ulcinj-Hotel Olimpic∗∗ Yugoslavia 6 stiff soil stiff soil
∗ Data provided by K. Pitilakis (University of Thessaloniki).
∗∗ Soil description and V profile in Talaganov et al., (1982).
S
∗∗∗ Ionianet array station, not included in ESD, data provided by G. Gazetas (National Technical University

of Athens).
(+) Only geologic site description available (Akkar and Gülkan, 2000).