Modeling and synthesis of strong ground motion

Success of earthquake resistant design practices critically depends on how accurately the future ground motion can be determined at a desired site. But very limited recorded data are available about ground motion in India for engineers to rely upon. To identify the needs of engineers, under such circumstances, in estimating ground motion time histories, this article presents a detailed review of literature on modeling and synthesis of strong ground motion data. In particular, modeling of seismic sources and earth medium, analytical and empirical Green’s functions approaches for ground motion simulation, stochastic models for strong motion and ground motion relations are covered. These models can be used to generate realistic near-field and far-field ground motion in regions lacking strong motion data. Numerical examples are shown for illustration by taking Kutch earthquake-2001 as a case study.