Civil Engineering Association

Application of Nonlinear Static Procedures for Seismic Assessment of Regular RC Moment Frame Buildings

Abstract. The applicability of nonlinear static procedures for estimating seismic demands of typical regular RC moment-resisting frames is evaluated. This work, conducted within the framework of the ATC-76-6 project, shows the degree to which nonlinear static methods can characterize global and
local response demands vis-à-vis those determined by nonlinear dynamic analysis for three RC mo-ment frame buildings. The response quantities (engineering demand parameters) considered are peak story displacements, story drifts, story shears and floor overturning moments. The single-mode push-
over methods evaluated include the N2 and the ASCE-41 coefficient methods. Multi-modal pushover methods such as the Modal Pushover Analysis and the Consecutive Modal Pushover method also were evaluated. The results indicate that the relatively good performance of the single-mode methods observed for low-rise buildings rapidly deteriorates as the number of stories increases. The multi- mode techniques generally extend the range of applicability of pushover methods, but at the cost of additional computation and without ensuring reliability of the results.