PSI - Issue 78

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect

Procedia Structural Integrity 78 (2026) 1585–1592

© 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of XX ANIDIS Conference organizers Keywords: earthquakes; seismic hazard; NLTHA; physics-based ground motion simulations Abstract The relatively low number of seismic ground motion data covering diverse source and site conditions complicates seismic hazard estimation, particularly for nonlinear time history analysis (NLTHA), fragility analysis and hazard analysis. This study focuses on reducing these gaps by using Physics-Based Simulations (PBS) to calculate seismic ground motions that take into consideration fault characteristics, wave propagation paths, and site-specific effects. A dedicated PBS database is developed, with a set of seismic scenarios differing in magnitude, source-to-site distance, and ground conditions. The validation process, as shown, involves the comparison between simulated ground motion intensity values – specifically Spectral Acceleration and Peak Ground Velocity (PGV) – with output from empirical Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs). The rather good agreement between the presented comparative results is a preliminary validation step, which demonstrates the ability of PBS to simulate realistic seismic response, and adds credibility to the use of PBS as a valuable tool for seismic hazard analysis and engineering applications. 1. Introduction The scarcity of ground motion recordings spanning the full spectrum of source and site conditions that influence seismic hazard – especially at near-source regions – continues to be a major obstacle to several key applications in earthquake engineering. These include, but are not limited to, Nonlinear Time History Analyses (NLTHA) of structures, seismic fragility analyses, and assessments of geotechnical systems and soil instability phenomena. XX ANIDIS Conference Preliminary seismological validation of a physics-based ground motion database Giovanni Smiroldo a *, Marco Fasan a , Fabio Romanelli b , Chiara Bedon a a University of Trieste – Department of Engineering and Architecture, Via Alfonso Valerio 6/1, Trieste 34127, Italy b University of Trieste – Department of Mathematics, Informatics and Geosciences, Via Weiss 4, Trieste 34128, Italy

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +39-040-558-3837; fax: +39-040-558-3836. E-mail address: giovanni.smiroldo@dia.units.it

2452-3216 © 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of XX ANIDIS Conference organizers 10.1016/j.prostr.2025.12.202