Aims & Scope
Editorial Board
Submitting Your Paper
Copyright & Permissions
Contact Us
Subscriptions
search

 Preliminary analysis of the hanging wall effect and velocity pulse of   the 5.12 Wenchuan earthquake

                                                                 Liu Qifang and Li Xiaojun

Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration, Harbin 150080, China

Abstract: A preliminary study of the PGA attenuation, hanging wall effect and velocity pulse characteristics from the
2008 Wenchuan earthquake of Ms =8.0 is described in this paper. The study was carried out through analyses in the time and
frequency domains of main earthquake records. In the PGA attenuation study, records from 316 stations less than 1000 km
from the surface rupture of the fault were used as a database and attenuation relationships were developed and compared with
some existing relationships that are widely used in mainland China, Chinese Taiwan and the US. At the same time, records
from 28 stations less than 100 km from the fault were used to study the hanging wall effect and velocity pulse characteristics
of this earthquake based on the distribution of PGA, PGV, spectral acceleration, and the velocity pulse peak, and the results
are compared with the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake. In addition, the large PGAs of the UD components observed in this event
are also discussed in this paper. From the results of the preliminary study, some conclusions are developed and suggestions
for further research are proposed.

Keywords: Wenchuan earthquake; hanging wall effect; velocity pulse; attenuation