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

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. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.