Residual displacement demands of conventional and dual oscillators subjected to earthquake ground motions characteristic of the soft soils of Mexico City

Abstract

This paper presents a statistical evaluation of residual displacement (RDs) demands in conventional and dual single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) oscillators subjected to a set of 220 earthquake ground motions recorded at soft soil sites of Mexico City. A dual SDOF oscillator represents a highly-dissipating energy system (e.g. buckling-restrained braces, BRBs) acting in parallel with a conventional system (e.g. flexible moment-resisting frames). To provide a context, RDs were normalised with respect to the corresponding: a) maximum transient displacements, and b) elastic spectral displacement. The effects of post-yield stiffness ratio (as affected by P-Δ effects), normalised period of vibration with respect to the predominant period of the ground motion, the type of hysteretic response, maximum displacement ductility, lateral strength ratio, type of transition (from elastic-to-plastic response), and damping ratio on normalised RDs were examined for the conventional oscillators. In addition, the effects of the stiffness ratio, lateral strength ratio, displacement ductility, post-yielding stiffness ratio, and type of hysteretic response of the primary and secondary parts of dual SDOF oscillators on normalised RDs were also evaluated. From the results of this investigation, it was observed that for dual SDOF systems the amplitude of normalised RDs is small when the primary part remains elastic. On the contrary, if the primary part exhibits inelastic response, normalised RDs might increase significantly and the post-yielding stiffness ratio of the secondary part plays a key role for constraining them (i.e. while a positive value reduces RDs significantly; a negative value is highly detrimental). Also, it was found that the type of hysteretic response of the primary part of a dual system has a significant effect on normalised RDs (e.g. it was found that a primary part with self-centring capacity, acting in parallel with a highly dissipation system (e.g. BRBs) as secondary part, is very effective for diminishing RDs). A discussion section is also offered to highlight the new findings of this study and differences on normalised RD demands between soft and stiff soils.