NONLINEAR ANALYSIS OF DESTRUCTIVE EARTHQUAKES. ECUADOR EARTHQUAKE OF APRIL 16, 2016

Abstract

The coastal profile of South America is one of the areas with the highest seismic activity in the region and in the world. The Chile earthquake of 1960 is the largest magnitude recorded instrumentally with moment magnitude Mw = 9.5. In the last 10 years, destructive seismic events have been recorded in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire. In the case of Ecuador, the most important event is the Earthquake of April 16, 2016 (16A) of magnitude 7.8Mw. This paper examines ground motion records for the 16A earthquake, in the cities of Pedernales, Esmeraldas, Portoviejo and Manta. The elastic and inelastic time-history response of single degree of freedom systems is calculated using the Newmark-beta method. Finally, a MATLAB code is presented to calculate the constant ductility spectra for different ductility values in the four stations under study.