Analysis case?

[popabf]

I have 4 analysis cases defined: Dead load, live load, modal and time history(TH- using 3 accelerograms or ground motion time histories).
In the window where I show/modify the TH analysis case appears a column where I shoul define the scale factor. And it has a great importance.
If I use 1 it results displacements about up to 1.2m.
If I use 0.1 it results displacements about up to 0.12m.
What does it do this scale factor? Shouldn't it be 1? So the entire ground motion time history act on the structure?
I use SAP2000 v.8.27

 

[shaking]

Hi,

Scale Factor is generally used when converting the unit of a specific ground motion. If your earthquake data have the units you like, then Scale factor is simply equal to 1.0.

Regards

 

[popabf]

Thanks! I guess I should scale the ground motion time histories, first. Do you know a classification of the severity of the ground motion according to the maximum acceleration of the ground motion? If I could know this, I could scale them in order to obtain what earthquake I want. And some programes to scale the ground motions?
Thankyou again.