Assessment of spectral amplification in city of Lima, Peru

In 1746, the city of Lima was impacted by an earthquake of high magnitude with a seismic intensity of X in the Modified Mercalli scale. Nowadays, a seismic event of similar magnitude has not occurred off the coast of Lima, for that reason is necessary to estimate ground response to verify if design motion of the Peruvian Earthquake-Resistant Code is appropriated. In this sense, the non-linear site response analysis was carried out in the city of Lima, for which synthetic movements in rock were generated and the deep S-wave velocity profiles were characterized. Then, the amplification of ground acceleration and spectral amplification were analyzed, as a result the spectral amplification on average was 3.0, being greater than 2.5 that is the value of the spectral amplification of the Peruvian Code. In addition, a new design spectrum for the city of Lima was proposed.