Antioptimization of earthquake excitation and response (Q1389135)

We present an approach to predict the response of earthquake-excited structures. The earthquake excitation is expanded in terms of series of deterministic functions, and the coefficients of the series are represented as a point in \(N\)-dimensional space. Each available accelerogram at a certain site is then represented as a point in the above space, modeling the available fragmentary historical data. We construct the minimum volume ellipsoid, containing all points, and develop the ellipsoidal models of uncertainty, pertinent to earthquake excitation. Finally, we determine the maximum response of a structure, subjected to the earthquake excitation, within ellipsoidal modeling of the latter.