Research of seismic spatial correlation effects on Kiewitt 8 single-layer reticulated shells

Ground motions arriving at different supports of a structure are spatially varying because the wave-passage effect, incoherence effect, site-response effect and attenuation effect in the seismic propagation. Based on an excellent ground motion simulation model, spatial correlated and non-stationary seismic ground motions were simulated respectively, considering the incoherence effect, wave-passage effect and their coupling effect. Under these ground motion inputs, the seismic response of a 90 m-span K8 single-layer reticulated shell under multiple support excitations were studied, considering different effects, by the method of time history analysis, and a comparison with the ones under simple support excitations was also made. The results show that the influence of wave-passage effect on the structural response depends on the traveling wave velocities, and the greater the traveling wave velocity is, the lesser the influence is. When the traveling wave velocity is low, wave-passage effect has a greater influence than that of an incoherence effect. And the influence of the coupling effect is greater than the one of either effect, thus the ground motion excitation simultaneously considering incoherence effect and wave-passage effect is relatively appropriate.