The damage to structures during an earthquake can be varied depending on the frequency characteristics of seismic waves and the geological properties of the ground. Therefore, considering such attributes in the design ground motions is crucial. The Korean seismic design standard (KDS 17 10 00) provides design response spectra for various ground classifications. If required for time-domain analysis, ground motion time series can be either selected and adjusted from motions recorded at rock sites in intraplate regions or artificially synthesized. Ground motion time series at soil sites should be obtained from site response analysis. However, in practice, selecting suitable ground motion records is challenging due to the overall lack of large earthquakes in intraplate regions, and artificially synthesized time series often leads to unrealistic responses of structures. As an alternative approach, this study provides a case study of generating ground motion time series based on the hybrid broadband ground motion simulation of selected scenario earthquakes at sites in the Nakdonggang delta region. This research is significant as it provides a novel method for generating ground motion time series that can be used in seismic design and response analysis. For large-magnitude earthquake scenarios close to the epicenter, the simulated response spectra surpassed the 1000-year design response spectra in some specific frequency ranges. Subsequently, the acceleration time series at each location were used as input motions to perform nonlinear 1D site response analysis through the PySeismoSoil Package to account for the site response characteristics at each location. The results of the study revealed a tendency to amplify ground motion in the mid to long-period range in most places within the study area. Additionally, significant amplification in the short-period range was observed in some locations characterized by a thin soil layer and relatively high shear wave velocity soil near the upper bedrock.

The empirical Green’s function method is applied to the foreshock and the mainshock of the 2016 Gyeongju earthquake to simulate strong ground motions of the mainshock and scenario earthquake at seismic stations of seven metropolises in South Korea, respectively. To identify the applicability of the method in advance, the mainshock is simulated, assuming the foreshock as the empirical Green’s function. As a result of the simulation, the overall shape, the amplitude of PGA, and the duration and response spectra of the simulated seismic waveforms are similar with those of the observed seismic waveforms. Based on this result, a scenario earthquake on the causative fault of Gyeongju earthquake with a moment magnitude 6.5 is simulated, assuming that the mainshock serves as the empirical Green’s function. As a result, the amplitude of PGA and the duration of simulated seismic waveforms are significantly increased and extended, and the spectral amplitude of the low frequency band is relatively increased compared with that of the high frequency band. If the empirical Green’s function method is applied to several recent well-recorded moderate earthquakes, the simulated seismic waveforms can be used as not only input data for developing ground motion prediction equations, but also input data for creating the design response spectra of major facilities in South Korea.