SHEDDING SOME LIGHT ON SEISMIC INPUT SELECTION IN EUROCODE 8

Eurocode 8 allows the use of real records as an input for nonlinear dynamic analysis; nevertheless, it has been found hardly applicable by practitioners. This is related to both the difficulty in rationally relating the ground motions to the hazard at the site and the required selection criteria, which may favor the use of various types of spectral matching signals rather than real records. To overcome, at least the latter problem, a specific software, namely REXEL, freely available at http://www.reluis.it/index_eng.html, was developed by the authors. It allows to search for suites of waveforms compatible to any arbitrary reference elastic response spectrum, according to Eurocode 8 criteria. Combinations of records are also optimal with respect to other selection criteria found important by recent research on the topic. In the paper, record selection in Eurocode 8 is briefly reviewed first, then, via some simple examples, it is shown how REXEL can solve most of the issues related to real records selection for seismic structural analysis with respect to Eurocode 8 provisions.