1. Introduction Since the first single-pulse shock recording of the Port Hueneme accelerogram of March 18, 1957, engineers started to pay attention to the corresponding earthquake- resistant construction (Housner 1958). Research over the last decade has shown that pulse-type earthquake ground motions that result from forward-directivity effects can result in significant damage to structures (Rodriguez-Marek and Cofer 2007). And analytical models indicated that traditional analysis methods were insufficient to capture the full effects of pulse-type ground motions due to lack of near-fault records. Fortunately, the recent increase in the number of recorded ground motions has allowed a better understanding of the hazardous effects of the pulse-type ground motions on structures. Hence, the structural responses under the near-fault ground motions have been investigated from various viewpoints and some conclusions can be obtained from these references (Kotaro and Izuru 2015). 1 Firstly, the near-fault ground motions have the potential to cause more severe damage to the base-isolated buildings (Kaoru et al. 2011, Fabio and Mirko 2016), steel structural 1  Corresponding author, Ph.D. E-mail: zhangming@home.swjtu.edu.cn buildings (Minasidis et al. 2014, Enderami et al. 2014), long-span structures (Zhang and Wang 2013, Wu et al. 2014, Yang et al. 2017), and high-rise flexible structures (Hall et al. 1995, Masaeli et al. 2014) than far-fault ground motions. Secondly, the near-fault ground motions are seen to possess large energy close to the structure’ s initial natural frequency and the elastic-plastic structure is easier to be damaged than others (Kaoru et al. 2011, Wu et al. 2014, Mavroeidis et al. 2004, Ueno et al. 2010, Alonso-Rodriguez and Miranda 2015, Cao et al. 2016), namely, the seismic responses increase with the pulse period of near-fault ground motions. Thirdly, the structural inelastic seismic response has an obviously increasing value under the action of near-fault ground motions (Kotaro and Izuru 2015, Mavroeidise et al. 2004, Ueno et al. 2010, Kalkan and Kunnath 2006). In some situations, the existing design methods, such as square root of the sum of the squares (SRSS) and complete quadratic combination (CQC), will underestimate the inelastic displacement of the structures subjected to the critical earthquake load (Yang et al. 2017). Fourth, the existing seismic design codes for buildings either improve the seismic design force requirements of the structures (IBC-2012 2011, CPA 2011) or forbid the building of important structures in hazardous areas including the near-fault source (GB 50011-2010 2010). This is because further improvement in the design of a sound structure in hazardous areas is required. Also it can be found from these references that the seismic response of a single-layer reticulated shell subjected The dynamic response and seismic damage of single-layer reticulated shells subjected to near-fault ground motions Ming Zhang 1 , Gerry Parke 2 and Zhiwang Chang 1 1 School of Civil Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China 2 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK (Received keep as blank , Revised keep as blank ,Accepted keep as blank ) Abstract. The dynamic response and seismic damage of single-layer reticulated shells in the near field of a rupturing fault can be different from those in the far field due to the different characteristics in the ground motions. To investigate the effect, the dynamic response and seismic damage of this spatial structures subjected to two different ground motions were numerically studied by nonlinear dynamic response analysis. Firstly, twelve seismic waves with an apparent velocity pulse, including horizontal and vertical seismic waves, were selected to represent the near-fault ground motion characteristics. In contrast, twelve seismic records recorded at the same site from other or same events where the epicenter was far away from the site were employed as the far-fault ground motions. Secondly, the parametric modeling process of Kiewitt single-layer reticulated domes using the finite-element package ANSYS was described carefully. Thirdly, a nonlinear time-history response analysis was carried out for typical domes subjected to different earthquakes, followed by analyzing the dynamic response and seismic damage of this spatial structures under two different ground motions based on the maximum nodal displacements and Park-Ang index as well as dissipated energy. The results showed that this spatial structures in the near field of a rupturing fault exhibit a larger dynamic response and seismic damage than those obtained from far-fault ground motions. In addition, the results also showed that the frequency overlap between structures and ground motions has a significant influence on the dynamic response of the single-layer reticulated shells, the duration of the ground motions has little effects. Keywords: single-layer reticulated shells; near-fault ground motions; far-fault ground motions; nonlinear dynamic analysis; frequencies; duration