Simqke errors

Corrections and modifications to SIMQKE1 (VAX

version)
This note describes some corrections and modifications made to SIMQKE1 (as supplied by NISEE at UC
Berkeley) by Edmund Booth (edmund@booth-seismic.co.uk) in October 1999; please contact him with
comments or questions. The changes are not implemented in the version supplied by NISEE.
The note first lists the changes to the Fortran code made by Edmund Booth to correct apparent errors; for
convenience, the changed parts of the code are listed. The note also describes some changes made to
improve the usability of the program; the associated changes to the Fortran code are not however listed.
A: CORRECTIONS
A1: 'Baseline correction'
A2: Rise time for ICASE=1
A3: A0 value for 'exponential' envelope (ICASE=3)
A4: Plateau time of 'compound' envelope (ICASE=4)
A5: Generation of multiple time histories
B: CHANGES TO INPUT FILES
C: OTHER MODIFICATIONS
A: CORRECTIONS
A1: 'Baseline correction'
A 'baseline correction' is applied to make the velocity at the end of the record equal zero. The baseline
correction in the original program appears to be based on a modified version of
Boyce, W.H. Treatment of earthquake accelerograms. BNZSEE 3(4) Page 163-172
There are two major problems with the adopted procedure:
1. The initial acceleration as generated does not equal zero.
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2. The generated final velocity is also non-zero - ie the correction doesn't work properly.
In fact, the baseline correction method adopted originally appears overcomplex and inappropriate.
The procedure has been modified so that an acceleration pulse of the same shape as the chosen intensity
envelope (ie figure 2 in the SIMQKE manual) is applied to bring the final velocity to zero. The peak
value of this acceleration pulse, expressed as a ratio of the peak ground acceleration, is written to an
output file. The correction has been changed to take place after the accelerations have been adjusted so
that there is only one peak equal to the specified peak ground acceleration. This change means that the
pga of the record may differ very slightly from the specified pga value. However, the error will not be
greater than the normalised value of the peak acceleration pulse referred to above; values not exceeding
5% have been found so far.
A2: Rise time for ICASE=1
The manual does not state what envelope is used if ICASE =1. It might be assumed that ICASE =1
corresponds to no envelope. Actually, this is not the case and an envelope is applied; between 0 and 2
seconds, a linear ramp up is applied, then after two seconds, the motions are not enveloped.
A3: A0 value for 'exponential' envelope (ICASE=3)
The variable A0, which sets the shape of the 'exponential' envelope option (ICASE=3) has been
calculated internally to normalise the envelope to a maximum value of 1. The associated code is as
follows.

C EXPONENTIAL INTENSITY ENVELOPE

3004 DO 3006 KK=2,NACCG
C!!!
C The next lines set AO for ICASE=3 such that the max intensity is 1
C!!!!
T00=(Log(BETAO) - Log(ALFAO)) / (BETAO - ALFAO)
AO=1 / (Exp(-ALFAO * T00) - Exp(-BETAO * T00))
TI=(KK-1)*DELT
FT=AO*(EXP(-ALFAO*TI)-EXP(-BETAO*TI))
3006 ACCG(KK)=ACCG(KK)*FT
GO TO 3011

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A4: Plateau time of 'compound' envelope(ICASE=4)

For ICASE=4, a 'compound' envelope is taken as bounding the generated acceleration time history.
However, figure 2 of the user manual is inconsistent; the variable TLVL is defined in the figure as the
elapsed time between the start of the motion and the end of the envelope plateau , whereas the formula in
the figure takes TLVL as equal to T_LEVEL, the duration of the envelope. The code is inconsistent in
that it assumes that TLVL equals both the elapsed time at the end of the plateau and the plateau duration,
which is wrong unless the initial rise time equals zero. For the 'trapezoidal' envelope, TLVL is taken as
the duration of the plateau, which is inconsistent with Figure 2.
The fix adopted has been to make TLVL consistently equal to the elapsed time (ie as defined in Figure
2). This necessitates the some changes to the Fortran code, as follows; the changes are identified by
comment lines starting C!!!.

C DEFINE SLOPES OF ENVELOPE

C
IF (ICASE.GT.2) GO TO 6
IF(TRISE.GT..0) GO TO 33
TRISE=0.25*DUR
TLVL=0.
33 IF(ICASE.LE.1) GO TO 7
8 FTC1=1./TRISE
C
C!!!
C The original code seems to confuse the time length of the pateau and
C the time at the end of the plateau.
C TLVL has been taken as the elapsed time at the end of the plateau
C!!!!
C
FTC2=-1./(DUR-TLVL)
GO TO 6
7 FTC1=0.5
C!!! FTC1=0.5 corresponds to a ramp up time of 2 secs for ICASE=1
C
FTC2=0.
6 WRITE(6,114) WA,TA,NFQ,WBEGIN,WEND

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C TRAPEZOIDAL INTENSITY ENVELOPE

3003 IF(ICASE.LE.1) GO TO 18
TX=TRISE
GO TO 19
18 TX=2.
C!!! TX=2. corresponds to a ramp up time of 2 secs for ICASE=1
C
C DEFINE MAXIMUM HEIGHTS IN TERMS OF SLOPES
C
19 DO 16 KK=2,NACCG
TI=(KK-1)*DELT
IF (TI.GT.TX) GO TO 15
FT=FTC1*TI
GO TO 16
C
C!!!
C The original code seems to confuse the time length of the pateau and
C the time at the end of the plateau.
C TLVL has been taken as the time at the end of the plateau
C!!!
C
15 IF(ICASE.LE.1) GO TO 28
IF((TI-TLVL).GT.0.) GO TO 29
28 FT=1.
GO TO 16
29 FT=1.+(TI-TLVL)*FTC2
C
C COMPUTE ACCELERATION
C
16 ACCG(KK)=ACCG(KK)*FT
GO TO 3011
C
C EXPONENTIAL INTENSITY ENVELOPE
3004 DO 3006 KK=2,NACCG
TI=(KK-1)*DELT
FT=AO*(EXP(-ALFAO*TI)-EXP(-BETAO*TI))
3006 ACCG(KK)=ACCG(KK)*FT
GO TO 3011
C
C!!!
C The original code seems to confuse the time length of the pateau and
C the time at the end of the plateau.
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C TLVL has been taken as the time at the end of the plateau
C!!!!
C
C COMPOUND INTENSITY ENVELOPE
3007 DO 3010 KK= 2,NACCG
TI=(KK-1)*DELT
IF(TI.GE.TRISE) GO TO 3008
FT=(TI/TRISE)**IPOW
GO TO 3010
3008 IF ((TI-TLVL).LT.0.) GO TO 3009
FT=EXP(-ALFAO*(TI-TLVL))
GO TO 3010
3009 FT=1.0
3010 ACCG(KK)=ACCG(KK)*FT
3011 CONTINUE
C

A5: Generation of multiple time histories

Currently, the VAX version of the code merely regenerates identical time histories where multiple
histories are requested (ie where NPA>1 is chosen). The following changes have been made to the
Fortran code to correct this.

IX=(IIX/2)*2+1
C!!! The next line has been added to get statistically independent records to be
C generated from the same target spectrum
PA(1)=random(ix)
C!!!
C
C LOOP OVER NPA, NUMBER OF ARTIFICIAL EARTHQUAKES DESIRED
DO 585 NTOTAL=1,NPA

C!!! The following line has been modified so that a new random number is used
C for successive phase angles for successive time histories
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31 pa(i)=random(-1)
C!!!
C ACCELERATION COMPUTATIONS
C
8603 NACCG=DUR/DELT+1.000001

B: CHANGES TO INPUT FILES

The following changes have been made to the way the input file is read, in order to improve usability.
The associated changes to the Fortran code are not listed here.
1. Lines 1,3,5,7,9,11 and 13 are treated as comment lines, and are ignored. This makes it much
easier to understand (and edit) the input file.
2. Line 2 is an extra data line, consisting of up to 8 characters (1A8) describing the IDENT of the
run (eg MYFILE). IDENT is also prompted for from the screen at the time of running, and must
be typed in by the user.
3. The data file name must have the extension .DAT and must correspond to IDENT, eg
MYFILE.DAT
4. The variable TLVL describing the plateau of the generated time history envelope has been revised
to become the elapsed time at the end of the plateau rather than the duration of the plateau. (The
original version is generally ambiguous in this respect and in error for the 'compound' envelope
type).
5. Consistent units (eg m/s and m/s2) are assumed, rather than in/sec and g.
6. The variable A0, which sets the shape of the 'exponential' envelope option 3 has been calculated
internally to normalise the envelope to a maximum value of 1. AO is therefore not required as
input. This means that the format for line 6 becomes (I5,5F10.4,I5).

C: OTHER MODIFICATIONS
The program has also been modified in other ways as follows.
1. The data is read from a file (eg MYFILE.DAT) which must be in the resident directory of the
program file.
2. The output is written to an output file (eg MYFILE.OUT), which is essentially the standard
SIMQKE output file, and to an acceleration file (eg MYFILE.ACC); both files are written to the
current directory. MYFILE.ACC produces a CSV file of the generated acceleration time history,
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for ease of reading into a spreadsheet program such as EXCEL.

3. The periods at which the target spectrum is matched are chosen at equally spaced period intervals
between Ts and Tl, rather than being equally spaced logarithmically.
4. Some screen prompts and information have been added, for ease of use.

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