The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center is calling on seismic engineers, government agencies and researchers to try out a “live” beta version of a web-based interactive tool that will allow them—free of charge—to search, extract and download recorded ground motions for the analysis and design of earthquake-resistant structures. Seismic engineers familiar with the tool are already lauding it, especially for use in performance-based earthquake engineering.
The 2010 PEER Ground Motion Database allows users to select ground-motion records to match the seismic code’s response spectrum or a customized site-specific spectrum for use when completing linear or non-linear dynamic time-history analysis. “[It] is light years over what we had and is going to give us a better understanding of the performance of buildings,” says Lawrence Burkett, a staff engineer with Rutherford & Chekene, San Francisco.