Appendix C

Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by 202.0.107.126 on 06/27/14. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Using the PEER NGA

Database
This document explains how to use the PEER
Ground Motion database. In most cases, this database is used to download ground motion record sets
to be used in response history analysis of structures.
To access the database, go to the main page for the site,
http://peer.berkeley.edu/nga/
To get ground motion records, click on Search (in the middle of the
second line of text from top).
To find a specific earthquake, scroll down in the box to the right of
Earthquake. For example, to find the Loma Prieta earthquake, scroll
down to Loma Prieta 1989-10-18 00:05 and select it.
To see where the records are located, click the Search button at the
bottom of the form. The results will appear in a map. After zooming in on
the map, you will see the map shown in Fig. GC1.
If you click on Monterey, for example, you will see the map shown in
Fig. GC2.
Alternatively, rather than use the map, you may obtain a list all of the
ground motion records related to the earthquake. To do this, change Display
Results from on Map to in Table and click Search. You will see a long list
of record sets, only part of which is shown below:
Record
NGA0731
NGA0732
NGA0733
NGA0734
NGA0735
NGA0736
NGA0737

Earthquake
Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta

1989-10-18
1989-10-18
1989-10-18
1989-10-18
1989-10-18
1989-10-18
1989-10-18

00:05
00:05
00:05
00:05
00:05
00:05
00:05

(6.93)
(6.93)
(6.93)
(6.93)
(6.93)
(6.93)
(6.93)

Station
CDMG 58373 APEEL 10 - Skyline
USGS 1002 APEEL 2 - Redwood City
CDMG 58393 APEEL 2E Hayward Muir
CDMG 58219 APEEL 3E Hayward CSUH
CDMG 58378 APEEL 7 - Pulgas
USGS 1161 APEEL 9 - Crystal Springs Res
CDMG 57066 Agnews State Hospital

Seismic Loads: Guide to the Seismic Load Provisions ASCE 7-05

Seismic Loads

217

Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by 202.0.107.126 on 06/27/14. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Figure GC1 Map for LomaPrieta Earthquake.

Figure GC2 Selecting the Monterey City Hall Record.

218 Seismic Loads: Guide to the Seismic Load Provisions of ASCE 7-05
Seismic Loads

Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by 202.0.107.126 on 06/27/14. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Return to the map-based search display. Using the example search for
Monterey, click on Ground Motion Records in the bubble caption, and
the screen shown in Fig. GC3 appears.
This diagram gives information about the earthquake, as well as links
to get the actual ground motion acceleration records. There are usually
three records per set: northsouth (in this case 000), eastwest (090), and
vertical (UP) records.
To see the northsouth ground motion record, click on the record
name, for example, LOMAP/MCH000 (displayed in the map-based search
results). This is the northsouth component because the compass bearing is
given as 000 in the title. Compass bearings are shown in Fig. GC4.
The following data will then appear (there are many more lines of data
than shown below):
PEER NGA STRONG MOTION DATABASE RECORD
LOMA PRIETA 10/18/89 00:05, MONTEREY CITY HALL, 000 (CDMG STATION 47377)
ACCELERATION TIME HISTORY IN UNITS OF G
7990
0.0050
NPTS, DT
-0.129203E-02 -0.155257E-02 -0.117803E-02 -0.355531E-03 -0.482559E-03
-0.484030E-03 -0.481456E-03 -0.477630E-03 -0.476219E-03 -0.479441E-03
-0.487404E-03 -0.499153E-03 -0.513798E-03 -0.531229E-03 -0.551795E-03
-0.574890E-03 -0.598821E-03 -0.621665E-03 -0.641146E-03 -0.654379E-03
-0.658443E-03 -0.651863E-03 -0.635102E-03 -0.610199E-03 -0.580759E-03
-0.552201E-03 -0.529093E-03 -0.511311E-03 -0.493790E-03 -0.469597E-03
-0.434634E-03 -0.388477E-03 -0.334624E-03 -0.280486E-03 -0.230926E-03
-0.187375E-03 -0.152341E-03 -0.129905E-03 -0.122443E-03 -0.129574E-03
-0.150408E-03 -0.182927E-03 -0.222825E-03 -0.261722E-03 -0.288505E-03
-0.298566E-03 -0.297028E-03 -0.290274E-03 -0.284506E-03 -0.281662E-03
-0.276887E-03 -0.266221E-03 -0.251237E-03 -0.242671E-03 -0.249410E-03
-0.272418E-03 -0.313515E-03 -0.368816E-03 -0.425876E-03 -0.474587E-03

The ground motion data is written in rows. In this file, there are 7,990 data
points, written at a time increment of 0.005 s. The accelerations are written
in g units.
To save the data to your computer, Select All of the data, copy, and
then paste into a NOTEPAD file.
To use the data in analysis software, you may need to copy the four
lines of header information that accompanies each record.
Other information: The PEER NGA database also contains a huge Excel
spreadsheet called the flatfile, which contains a host of information about
each ground motion. This spreadsheet can be downloaded from the Download link at the top of the file, and the explanation of the data in the spreadsheet can be obtained from the Documentation link. This information will
be useful when you are trying to select several earthquakes that have similar
characteristics, such as fault type, magnitude, site characteristics, and so on.

Seismic Loads: Guide to the Seismic Load Provisions ASCE 7-05

Seismic Loads

219

Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by 202.0.107.126 on 06/27/14. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Figure GC3 Detailed Information on Single Ground Motion.

Figure GC4 Compass for Ground Motion Bearings.

220 Seismic Loads: Guide to the Seismic Load Provisions of ASCE 7-05
Seismic Loads