Generation of artificial earthquake records with a nonstationary Kanai-Tajimi model

The generalized nonstationary Kanai-Tajimi model is used to describe and simulate the ground motion time histories. Both amplitude and frequency nonstationarities are incorporated in the model. The moving time-window technique is used to evaluate the time varying parameters of the model using actual earthquake records. Application of the model for several Iranian earthquakes Naghan (1977), Tabas (1978) and Manjil (1990) are presented. It is shown that the model and identification algorithms are able to accurately capture the nonstationary features of these earthquake accelerograms. The statistical characteristics of the spectral response curves of the simulated accelerograms are compared with those for the actual records to demonstrate the effectiveness of the model. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.