LAUSR

Abstract A total of 39 free‐field accelerograms in the 2013 M w  6.7 Lushan earthquake, with the closest site‐to‐rupture distances ( R rup ) being less than 200 km, are compared with the median ground motions predicted by the recent Next Generation Attenuation (NGA)‐West2 ground‐motion prediction equations (GMPEs). Overall, for most Lushan station recordings over the whole range of R rup , the spectral acceleration (SA) of the peak ground acceleration (PGA) and of T =0.06  s are within one standard deviation of the predictions from the five NGA‐West2 GMPEs. Most intraevent residuals also fall between plus and minus one standard deviation from the predictions. Moreover, the standard deviation of intraevent residuals are smaller for SA of T =0.06  s than for PGA, which suggests that the application of NGA‐West2 in predicting high‐frequency ground motion due to the Lushan earthquake is acceptable. The spatial contours of intraevent residuals for PGA predicted by the five NGA‐West2 models are almost the same, all showing four regions of negative intraevent residuals. Three of these regions are mainly distributed with the source‐to‐site azimuth approximating to 90° or −90° and the other one approximating to −180°, which are consistent with the extrusion and rupture directions of the Lushan earthquake fault. In general, the five NGA‐West2 GMPEs generate relatively large intraevent residuals at the long period ( T =1.0  s) for R rup exceeding 100 km, although the intraevent residuals are not as large. The short‐period hanging‐wall effects are more consistent with the NGA‐West2 hanging‐wall scaling than those of long period, and the short‐period ground motions on the footwall are more consistent with the NGA‐West2 models than those on the hanging wall.