Spectra of seismic force reduction factors of MDOF systems normalized by two characteristic periods

Seismic force reduction factor(SFRF) spectra of shear-type multi-degree-of-freedom(MDOF) structures are investigated. The modified Clough model, capable of considering the strength-degradation/hardening and stiffnessdegradation, is adopted. The SFRF mean spectra using 102 earthquake records on a typical site soil type(type C) are constructed with the period abscissa being divided into three period ranges to maintain the peak features at the two sitespecific characteristic periods. Based on a large number of results, it is found that the peak value of SFRF spectra may also exist for MDOF, induced by large high-mode contributions to elastic base shear, besides the mentioned two peak values. The variations of the stiffness ratio λk and the strength ratio λF of the top to bottom story are both considered. It is found that the SFRFs for λF ≤λk are smaller than those for λF > λk. A SFRF modification factor for MDOF systems is proposed with respect to SDOF. It is found that this factor is significantly affected by the story number and ductility. With a specific λF(= λk0.75), SFRF mean spectra are constructed and simple solutions are presented for MDOF systems. For frames satisfying the strong column/weak beam requirement, an approximate treatment in the MDOF shear-beam model is to assign a post-limit stiffness 15%-35% of the initial stiffness to the hysteretic curve. SFRF spectra for MDOF systems with 0.2 and 0.3 times the post-limit stiffness are remarkably larger than those without post-limit stiffness. Thus, the findings that frames with beam hinges have smaller ductility demand are explained through the large post-limit stiffness.

Static and dynamic inelastic P-Δ effect for seismic design

Seismic influence of P-Δ effect is the subject of this study.First,it is pointed out that the elastic static amplification factor shall be isolated in formulating the dynamic inelastic second order effect.An amplification factor for the static inelastic P-Δ effect is derived.Seismic force reduction factors(SFRF)for given ductility and stability coefficients are computed for one-story,one-span frames.The P-Δ amplification factors for seismic base shears are obtained by dividing SFRFs with and without P-Δ effect.Both P-Δ amplification factors and SFRFs are presented separately with two kinds of period abscissas.The P-Δ amplification factors are dependent on periods with the maximum occurring at about 0.75 s for site type C and approach to the static inelastic counterpart at long periods.Post-yield stiffness cannot fully counteract the adverse impact of the P-Δ effect.Formulas for seismic P-Δ amplification factors are proposed and compared to results of others.Collapse capacity spectra(CCS)are reviewed and their application in codes discussed.Available CCSs are compared with SFRFs with finite ductility computed for two ensembles of seismic records.A comparison reveals that the SFRFs are affected by seismic records,and available CCSs do not always provide upper limits for the SFRFs when stability coefficients are greater than 0.1 for frame models.