In seismic engineering, nonlinear dynamic analyses have become vital tools for accurately assessing the safety of critical infrastructure, in which estimating collapse probability and verifying serviceability levels are priorities. However, pseudo-acceleration response spectra prescribed by standards such as Eurocode 8, NSR10 or NBR 15421 lack temporal information, which prevents the adequate representation of seismic load evolution. This limitation hinders the ability to capture phenomena such as stiffness degradation, damage accumulation, or stress redistribution, all of which are fundamental to nonlinear analyses. Consequently, the creation of artificial seismic records stands out as a feasible approach for studies in the time domain. Classical methods such as the Kanai-Tajimi model (KANAI, 1961; TAJIMI, 1960), are widely used due to their simplicity but show poor spectral fidelity when compared to target design spectra. To overcome this challenge, this study introduces a methodology inspired by Clough and Penzien (1995). The proposed methodology facilitates the generation of synthetic accelerograms whose spectral response aligns with high fidelity to the normative pseudo-acceleration spectrum, ensuring their effective application in nonlinear dynamic analyses. An additional application of this methodology is the reduction of real signals to optimize nonlinear structural analysis. It is common in the literature to use trimmed segments of real signals to reduce processing time. However, such trimming can alter the original statistical properties of the signal. The methodology proposed in this study enables the generation of artificial signals that preserve the statistical characteristics of real ones, but with shorter duration, maintaining data integrity for structural analysis. The main objective of this study is to assess the method’s effectiveness in generating artificial records from normative spectra and real signals, verifying both its spectral accuracy and applicability in advanced seismic design and structural assessment contexts. Preliminary results show strong agreement with design spectra and stable frequency content distribution. In conclusion, the proposed method constitutes a precise, robust, and conceptually consistent tool for generating synthetic seismic signals from normative spectra and real signals, fulfilling the spectral and temporal requirements necessary for their use in nonlinear structural response studies.
