Document Type

Conference Paper

Journal/Book Title/Conference

13th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering

Publisher

Earthquake Engineering Research Institute

Location

Portland, OR

Publication Date

3-11-2026

Journal Article Version

Version of Record

First Page

1

Last Page

5

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Abstract

Earthquakes on the Wasatch Fault pose a significant hazard to Utah’s people and built environment. Code-based seismic design of civil infrastructure in Utah is governed by ground motions determined from regional probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA). However, with a large earthquake overdue along several segments of the Wasatch Fault, there is growing concern among Utah engineers that PSHA-based ground motions are significantly lower than those from a deterministic scenario. This study compares the structural responses of a four-story steel moment frame in Salt Lake City, Utah, under two ground-motion sets derived from risk-targeted probabilistic and deterministic seismic-hazard analyses. The preliminary results suggest that the relative difference in the probability of collapse between deterministic and probabilistic ground motions is 23% higher for the building considered. In addition, on average, the maximum drift and acceleration responses from deterministic ground motions are 55% and 56% larger than those from probabilistic records, respectively. This sizable discrepancy between the impact of probabilistic and deterministic ground motions motivates a closer examination of code-based seismic design along the Wasatch Fault.

Comments

This article will be rereleased by EERI in July 2026 as part of the full conference proceedings. Published with permission.

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