Characteristics of amplitude and duration for near fault strong ground motion from the 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan Earthquake

A great number of free-field ground motion records are obtained during the 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan, earthquake. Records from 130 near fault free-field stations within 55 km to the causative fault surface are used as database, and characteristics of earthquake peak ground acceleration, velocity, displacement and duration are analyzed. According to this study, near fault ground motions are strongly affected by distance to fault, fault rupture directivity, site condition, as well as thrust of hanging wall. Compared with empirical strong ground motion attenuation relations used in China, US and Japan, the PGAs and PGVs recorded in this earthquake are not as large as what we have expected for a large earthquake as magnitude 7.6. However, the largest PGV and PGD worldwide were recorded in this event, which are 292 cm/s and 867 cm, respectively. Caused by nonlinear site effects of soil, peaks and corresponding ratios on E-class site were markedly different from those on other sites. Just as observed in historic earthquakes, fault rupture directivity effects caused significant differences between peaks of ground motion of two horizontal components, but took very slight effects on the duration of ground motion. The significant velocity pulses associated with large PGVs and PGDs, as well as large permanent displacements, which may result from the large thrust of the hanging wall, became the outstanding character of this event. Based on this study, we point out that 3D waveform modeling is needed to understand and predict near fault ground motion of large earthquakes.