Abstract:3 551 sets of earthquake records from the NGA database of America were grouped according to site conditions, moment magnitude, and epicentral distance.The wavelet power spectrum of each record was calculated using a one-dimensional continuous wavelet transform.The predominant frequency corresponding to the maximum value of the wavelet power spectrum at every time was investigated.Results showed that the predominant frequency of ground motion gradually decreased with time, and the time-variation of the predominant frequency of the vertical component seemed more remarkable than that of the horizontal component.Furthermore, a linear function model, together with an exponential model and an exponential trigonometric model, were used to fit the time-varying curves of predominant frequency under varying magnitudes.Epicentral distance, effects of site conditions, moment magnitude, and epicentral distance on the time-varying curves of predominant frequency were analyzed.Time-varying curves of horizontal and vertical frequencies decreased with time and decayed more quickly in the vertical direction.In most cases, the high-frequency components were higher in the vertical records than those in the horizontal records.