Amplitude Variability in Simulated Incoherent Seismic Ground Motions

This note compares in detail four commonly used schemes for the simulation of spatially variable ground motions. Emphasis is placed not only on the conformity of the simulations with the power and cross spectral density of the random field but, also, on the examination of the consistency of the simulations with the homogeneity condition, and the (Fourier) amplitude variability of the simulations. It is shown that, whereas three techniques that simulate ground motions in parallel satisfy the homogeneity requirement, produce simulations with random amplitudes, and amplitude and phase variability consistent with that of recorded data, one technique that simulates motions in sequence does not.