Application of Hilbert-Huang Transform in Generating Spectrum-Compatible Earthquake Time Histories

Abstract

Spectrum-compatible earthquake time histories have been widely used for seismic analysis and design. In this paper, a data processing method, Hilbert-Huang transform, is applied to generate earthquake time histories compatible with the target seismic design spectra based on multiple actual earthquake records. Each actual earthquake record is decomposed into several components of time-dependent amplitude and frequency by Hilbert-Huang transform. The spectrum-compatible earthquake time history is obtained by solving an optimization problem to minimize the relative difference between the response spectrum of the generated time history and the target seismic design spectra. Since the basis for generating spectrum-compatible earthquake time histories is derived from actual earthquake records by employing the Hilbert-Huang transform, the nonstationary characteristics and the natural properties of the seed earthquake records are well preserved in the generated earthquake time histories.