A prototype expert system was developed for selecting site specific design accelerograms from a database of earthquake records according to a set of rules and heuristics. The expert system was devised using the shell builder M.1 along with external routines written in C and FORTRAN for computing the required characteristics of the ground motion. The expert system combines objective and subjective approaches to select a time history for a given site/structure system. It uses the information supplied by the user about the site and the structure under consideration to explore the data base and proposes a list of candidate time histories. The time histories are then ranked in different ways according to their expected damage potential. The criteria used to assess the damage potential are the type of structure considered, the subsurface geology at the site, and the ground motion characteristics, This bears on the effect of the recommended time history characteristics such as its dominant period, peak ground acceleration or velocity, and duration. If the system can not find a recorded accelerogram within the database for the given site, it asks the user for additional information about the site and proposes recommended parameters for the generation of synthetic accelerogram.

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