Chapter 2 Analysis of strong motion records from the Southern Hyogo earthquake of January 17, 1995

Strong motion records from the Southern Hyogo earthquake of January 17, 1995, are overviewed. The discussion is focused on (1) the characteristic of near field records including the predominant direction of motion versus the fault strike and their spectral characteristic, and (2) the orientation error of seismometers and ground motion amplification at borehole array stations. Two numerical techniques for seismic response analysis of ground are applied for the array stations. The one is the frequency-dependent equi-linearized technique for the frequency domain analysis, and the other is the effective stress-based liquefaction analysis method. The numerical calculations are compared with the records at four borehole array stations.