Earthquakes and Ground Motions - Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design - page 257

Figure 7.33 Near-source records of the 1979 Imperial Valley earthquake (after
Mollaioli, 2006)
The largest values of peak ground velocity which could be generated in the near-
source areas are estimated around 300 cm/sec (Bommer and Alarcon, 2006). The
majority of the velocity records for the Chi-Chi (Taiwan) thrust earthquake (with a
very dense number of recording stations, which allow having 420 records) framed
into this limit (Fig. 7.34) but the recorded value of 380 cm/sec from the TCU068
station exceeded this limit (RMS, 2000). The presumed maximum value for peak
ground velocity can reach even 600 cm/sec, but only for interplate earthquakes
(Fig. 7.35). For intraplate earthquakes, the values of peak ground velocity are
reduced, generally under 50 cm/sec