Limitations and Recent Improvements of Earthquake Response Spectrum

The earthquake spectrum method is a fundamental method for the seismic design of structures,which is continuous in the code for seismic design of buildings(GB50011-2010).The generation and development of the earthquake response spectrum used in the seismic design of civil engineerings are reviewed in this paper.The fundamental hypotheses of the earthquake response spectrum are studied as well as its essential characteristics and shape features.Furthermore,the limitations existed and relevant improvements on the earthquake response spectrum are discussed and generalized.At last,the theoretical foundation could be established for improvement of the earthquake spectrum method and structural seismic design by adopting the earthquake response spectrum.