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A Survey of Techniques for Predicting Earthquake Ground Motions for Engineering Purposes

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Abstract

Over the past four or five decades many advances have been made in earthquake ground-motion prediction and a variety of procedures have been proposed. Some of these procedures are based on explicit physical models of the earthquake source, travel-path and recording site while others lack a strong physical basis and seek only to replicate observations. In addition, there are a number of hybrid methods that seek to combine benefits of different approaches. The various techniques proposed have their adherents and some of them are extensively used to estimate ground motions for engineering design purposes and in seismic hazard research. These methods all have their own advantages and limitations that are not often discussed by their proponents. The purposes of this article are to: summarise existing methods and the most important references, provide a family tree showing the connections between different methods and, most importantly, to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

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Notes

  1. Some of the programs for ground-motion prediction are available for download from the ORFEUS Seismological Software Library http://www.orfeus-eu.org/Software/softwarelib.html

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Acknowledgements

The design of the diagram in this article has benefited from advice contained in the book by Tufte (2006). Some of the work presented in this article was funded by the ANR project ‘Quantitative Seismic Hazard Assessment’ (QSHA). The rest was funded by internal BRGM research projects. We thank the rest of the BRGM Seismic Risks unit for numerous discussions on the topics discussed in this article. Finally, we thank two anonymous reviewers for their careful and detailed reviews, which led to significant improvements to this article.

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    John Douglas & Hideo Aochi

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Douglas, J., Aochi, H. A Survey of Techniques for Predicting Earthquake Ground Motions for Engineering Purposes. Surv Geophys 29, 187–220 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-008-9046-y

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