Evaluation of peak structural responses based on consistent elastic and inelastic design spectra

Abstract

AbstractMany structures built in seismically active regions are expected to behave nonlinearly during an earthquake event. Because of the complex and cumbersome nature of nonlinear time history structural analysis, more recent research has been focused on a way of producing inelastic response spectra that will accurately estimate the peak structural responses. In this paper, peak acceleration and displacement values for three different two‐dimensional steel frames were determined using linear and nonlinear time history analysis, and the results were then compared with peak responses found using elastic and inelastic response spectrum analysis. In order to compare the accuracy of these methods, 12 ground motions were adjusted using spectral matching to produce 12 different ground motion histories with nearly identical 5% damped elastic design spectra for the University of Utah location in Salt Lake City, as specified by the United States Geological Survey. It was determined that linear response spectrum analysis proves to be a fairly accurate estimate of time history peak responses. While inelastic response spectrum analysis was found to provide a somewhat less accurate estimation of time history peak responses, the method still shows promise as a simpler and less computationally intensive alternative to time history analysis. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.