Time-frequency signal analysis of earthquake records using Mexican hat wavelets

A method is presented for time-frequency signal analysis of earthquake records using Mexican hat wavelets. Ground motions in earthquakes are postulated as a sequence of simple penny-shaped ruptures at different locations along a fault line and occurring at different times. The single point source displacement of ground motion is idealized by a Gaussian function. For the purpose of signal analysis of accelerograms, the ground motion record generated by a simple penny-shaped rupture is used to form the basis wavelet function. After a careful study of the characteristics of various wavelet functions, the Mexican hat wavelet was found to be the most appropriate wavelet basis function to represent the acceleration of a single point source rupture. The result of the signal processing of an accelerogram is presented in the form of a scalogram using the coefficients of the continuous Mexican hat wavelet transform to describe the signal energy in the time-scale domain. The proposed signal processing methodology can be used to investigate the characteristics of accelerograms recorded on various types of sites and their effects on different types of structures.