On the influence of strong-ground motion duration on residual displacement demands

Abstract

This paper summarizes results of a comprehensive analytical study aimed at evaluating the influence of strong ground motion duration on residual displacement demands of single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) and multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) systems. For that purpose, two sets of 20 earthquake ground motions representative of short-duration and long-duration records were considered in this investigation. While the influence of strong ground motion duration was evaluated through constantstrength residual displacement ratios, Cr, computed from the nonlinear response of elastoplastic SDOF systems, its effect on the amplitude and height-wise distribution of residual drift demands in MDOF systems was studied from the response of three one-bay two-dimensional generic frame models. In this investigation, an inelastic ground motion intensity measure was employed to scale each record, which allowed reducing the record-to-record variability in the estimation of residual drift demands. From the results obtained in this study, it was found that long strong-motion duration records might trigger larger median Cr ratios for SDOF systems having short-to-medium period of vibration than short strong-motion duration records. However, taking into account the large record-to-record variability of Cr, it was found that strong motion duration might not be statistically significant for most of the combinations of period of vibration and levels of lateral strength considered in this study. In addition, strong motion duration does not have a significant influence on the amplitude of peak residual drift demands in MDOF systems, but records having long strong-motion duration tend to increase residual drift demands in the upper stories of long-period generic frames.