Abstract

In the last 10 years, Nakamura's technique (HVSR) has gained a widespread popularity as a low cost tool to estimate site amplification of seismic ground motion: a large amount of site amplification studies is described in the grey literature. Recently, this technique has been used for different purposes, like studies of sedimentary basins, faults, cavities and finally to estimate the fundamental frequency of buildings. This paper provides a review of its theoretical background, as well as a description of its applications: there is, seemingly, a wide consensus on the possibilities offered by HVSR, however, no clear theoretical background has yet been established, and the literature offers contradictory views about several key points of the method.