Directivity Effect in the Peak Ground Acceleration Fields and Attenuation Relations - A Case Study of the Ms 8.0 Wenchuan Earthquake

We study the characteristics of ground motion fields and peak ground motion attenuation relations during the 2008 Ms 8.0 great Wenchuan earthquake by using 198 sets of three-component acceleration time history recordings. To provide a comparable result to other earthquakes, we first rotated the east-west (EW) and north-south (NS) orientated ground motion to fault strike normal (FN) and fault strike parallel (FP) directions. Through comparison of the near-field peak acceleration fields and peak acceleration attenuation relations, there obviously exists a rupture directivity effect in the peak ground accelerations. The amplitude in the rupture propagation direction is higher than that of the opposite direction. And the closer the station to the fault plane, the smaller the difference of ground motion amplitude between the two opposite directions.