In
the early 80's the Swiss Seismological Service together
with the formerly Federal
Office for Water and Geology (FOWG) started to
plan a strong motion network capable to study the
following seismological and engineering aspects:
Characteristics of strong ground motion at different
sites.
Attenuation of strong ground motion with distance.
Investigation of site effects due to different local
geology.
Investigation of the dynamic behaviour of main types
of dams in Switzerland.
Financial support for purchase and installation of
the instruments was provided by the dam owners through
the Swiss
Association of Producers and Distributors of Electricity
(Verband Schweizerischer Elektrizitätswerke-VSE).
The annual costs for service, maintenance and data
compilation is covered by the government and contracted
to the Swiss Seismological Service. The installation
and commissioning of this network with a total of
110 strong motion stations was carried out between
1992 and 1998. Due to different requirements and aspects,
this network is subdivided in two subnetworks:
free-field network (57 stations)
dam-related network (53 stations)
In addition to these two networks another station
array with strong motion accelerographs is located
in all the Nuclear Power Plants of Switzerland.
This network is, contrary to the others, operated
by the Nuclear Power Plants themselves.
