Empirical Correlations between Peak Ground Velocity and Spectrum-Based Intensity Measures

Abstract

Empirical correlation equations between peak ground velocity (PGV) and several spectrum-based ground motion intensity measures are developed. The intensity measures examined in particular were: peak ground acceleration (PGA), 5% damped pseudo-spectral acceleration (SA), acceleration spectrum intensity (ASI), and spectrum intensity (SI). The computed correlations were obtained using ground motions from active shallow crustal earthquakes and four ground motion prediction equations. Results indicate that PGV is strongly correlated (i.e., a correlation coefficient of $\rho =0.89$ ) with SI, moderately correlated with medium to long-period SA (i.e., $\rho \approx 0.8$ for vibration periods 0.5-3.0 seconds), and also moderately correlated with short period SA, PGA and ASI ( $\rho \approx 0.\text{7}-0.\text{73}$ ). A simple example is used to illustrate one possible application of the developed correlation equations for ground motion selection.