Engineering analysis of measured rotational ground motions at GVDA

•We have measured translational and rotational 6DOF earthquake ground motions from 2008 to 2015.•Parametric results from this data set are compared with similar measurements in Taiwan.•Ground rotations attenuate more rapidly than translations along with increasing epicentral distance.•Measured rotational ground motions differ from elastic wave theory estimations.•Response spectra and rotation / translation ratios are calculated for 74 earthquakes

Characteristics of rotational earthquake ground motions and their effects on structural response are not yet well-defined. Recording rotational ground motions directly in free field is in its infancy, and simultaneous six-component earthquake measurements are being accumulated slowly. A six-degree-of-freedom (6DOF) ground motion observation system was installed in the Garner Valley Downhole Array (GVDA), a very well-characterized and well-instrumented geotechnical array in Southern California. Since 2008, six-component free-field earthquake ground motions have been recorded from hundreds of earthquakes with a relatively wide range of hypocentral distances and magnitudes. In this paper, analysis was conducted to develop the characteristics of these measured rotational ground motions. Linear relationships between peak rotation velocity and peak ground acceleration were found, similar to previous 6DOF measurements in Taiwan and Japan. Ratios of rotation to translation as a function of hypocentral distance show larger ground rotations at closer distance, and that rotational ground motions tend to attenuate more rapidly than corresponding translational ground motions. Measured rotational motions show differences from estimations using elastic plane wave theory when using simple local apparent wave velocities. Finally, preliminary empirical relationships for rotational response spectra are estimated for earthquake engineering applications.