Effect of Frequency Content of Earthquake Ground Motions on Structures with Varying Dimension

Abstract

An earthquake is a catastrophe which is always a topic of concern for structural designers and civil technocrats. Not only it causes physical damage to the structures but also successful to impart psychological disorder in human minds for long-run. In order to mitigate the devastating effects of earthquake on society, it is eminent to study the dynamic characteristics in detailed manner i.e. to examine how the structure responds owing to the seismic characteristics. The various ground motion characteristic includes time-duration and velocity, frequency content and amplitude, displacement, incremental velocity and incremental displacement, peak ground accelerations (PGAs), etc. Out of these, effect of frequency content and maximum amplitude value of earthquake ground motions on the seismic response of structures is often underestimated. This paper investigates the effect of frequency content and maximum amplitude value on the seismic response of structures which is dominant of all characteristics. The study proceeds with recording time-history of acceleration obtained from conventional unidirectional harmonic shake table. Further, FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) analysis of applied time-history is done and the effect of frequency content and the maximum amplitude value of applied time-history on the seismic responses of structures is investigated and studied. For this, structures with varying dimensions (height, length, and width) are modelled and time-history analysis of structural models has been carried out in SAP2000v19. Seismic responses of analysed structures are represented in the form of fundamental natural frequency, storey displacement, and base shear. It is reported that out of many earthquake indices, frequency content and amplitude of earthquake ground motions are the most dominating. It is reported that the resonance phenomena occurs for the less height structure and thus it shows maximum displacement and base shear responses. Also, as height, length, and width of structure increases; displacement, base shear, and fundamental time-period of structure increases.