Correlation of spectral acceleration values of vertical and horizontal ground motion pairs

We present correlation coefficient estimates between a number of ground motion intensity measures ( IMs), as measured from the NGA-West2 database, with focus on the correlation of vertical–vertical and vertical–horizontal ground motion components. The IMs considered include spectral accelerations with periods from 0.01 to 10 s, peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, and significant duration (for 5%–75% and 5%–95% definitions). To facilitate their use, parametric equations are also fitted to the correlation models. Finally, the dependence of the obtained correlation coefficients to magnitude, distance, and Vs 30 is evaluated.