Computer aided seismic input selection for the new Italian seismic code

The recently released Italian seismic code avails of the work of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia concerning the seismic hazard analysis of the Italian territory. This is reflected in the definition of seismic action on structures based on site-dependent elastic acceleration spectra closely approximating the uniform hazard spectra for each site, making the Italian seismic code one of the most advanced with respect to this issue, at least in Europe. This also affects the seismic input selection for non-linear structural analysis if appropriate tools are available to practitioners. The definition of the design spectra and the selection of ground motion suites according to the code are first reviewed here. Subsequently, a discusson how a specific software developed by the authors, REXEL, may help in finding record sets compatible with design spectra, is presented. Some illustrative examples are used factually to show how the new code and REXEL easily permit a rational record selection applied to earthquake engineering.