ABSTRACT
The 2015 Nepal Earthquake caused significant localized damage to several historic centers in the Kathmandu Valley. The earthquake had an epicenter 80 km northwest of Kathmandu and a focal depth of 15 km, and the corresponding strong motion data was recorded by the United States Geological Survey KANTP station, located in the Kathmandu city center. Survey data for the monuments was taken by hand and using laser-scanning, and was used to create the geometric models necessary to investigate collapse. Once the equations of motion for each of the monuments had been derived by the Rhino script, they were exported to MATLAB where they were then solved for the acceleration time history of the Nepal earthquake. The effect of elasticity on the structure can be to decrease the pulse amplitude that causes overturning, particularly in the region of the overturning envelope where the Nepal earthquake pulse sits.
