Site-dependent shear-wave velocity equations versus depth in California and Japan

•We find that the shear-wave travel time is strongly correlated with depth.•We propose a method to build linear velocity equations resort to travel time.•We provide shear-wave velocity equations versus depth in Japan and California.•We compare velocity structures in different regions.

Shear-wave velocity of the near-surface ground is an important soil property in earthquake and civil engineering. Using the data from 643 boreholes from the KiK-net in Japan and 135 boreholes from California where the shear-wave velocity profile reaches at least 30 m, firstly, we classify sites by building code, then build site-dependent relationships between travel time and depth by regression utilizing the logarithmic model and power-law model, lastly, we get shear-wave velocity equations versus depth based on the mathematical relationship between travel time and velocity. The results show that: (1) the travel time is strongly correlated with depth, and the Pearson correlation coefficients range between 0.867 and 0.978. (2) there is a certain difference between linear velocity equations and power-law velocity equations, and the power-lower equations are generally more close to measured data than linear equations except for class E in Japan and class D in California. (3) the velocities are similar at the sites of each class for different regions but that the gradient of velocity with depth vary between different regions.