Study of the correlations between main shocks and aftershocks and aftershock synthesis method

To consider the influence of aftershocks in engineering design, the correlations between main shocks and aftershocks should be examined, and an aftershock simulation method with main shock ground motions needs to be developed. In this study, the data on the sequences of main shock-aftershock ground motions and other related parameters were collected. Using these data, correlations between the magnitude, frequency, duration and energy of the main shock-aftershock ground motions were investigated. The results showed that the magnitude of the aftershock can be larger than that of the main shock. The shapes of the Fourier amplitude spectra of main shocks and aftershocks were similar; however, the predominant frequency and high-frequency components of the aftershock tended to be larger. Considering the magnitude difference between the main shock and the aftershock, the correlation of durations was explored. Additionally, a new concept, the duration ratio, was defined to describe the concentration of seismic energy release, and main shock energy was strongly positively correlated with the energy attenuated during the main shock-aftershock sequence. Finally, based on these results regarding correlation, an aftershock synthesis using recorded main shock ground motions was constructed with the trigonometric series method for seismic design, and some examples are given to analyze the rationality of this synthetic method.