| Tall buildings by their nature are computationally intensive to analyze. They consist of thousands of degrees of freedom and when subjected to strong ground motion from a nearby source, exhibit inelastic response. Modeling this inelastic response requires an iterative approach that is computationally expensive. Furthermore, a large class of buildings, classified as irregular, exhibits complex behavior that can be studied only when the structures are modeled in their entirety. To this end, a three-dimensional analysis program, FRAME3D, has been developed incorporating two special beam-column elements---the plastic hinge element and the elastofiber element that can model beams and columns in buildings accurately and efficiently, a beam-column joint element that can model inelastic joint deformation, and 4-noded elastic plane-stress elements to model floor slabs acting as diaphragms forcing the lateral force resisting frames in a building to act as one unit. The program is capable of performing time-history analyses of buildings in their entirety.; Six 19-story irregular steel moment frame buildings (with buildings 2A and 3A being variants of buildings 2 and 3, respectively) have been designed per the latest code (Uniform Building Code, 1997). Two of these buildings have reentrant corners and the other two have torsional irregularity. Their strength and ductility are assessed by performing pushover analyses on them. To assess their performance under strong shaking, FRAME3D models of these buildings are subjected to near-source strong motion records from the Iran earthquake (Mw = 7.3, Tabas Station) of 1978, the Northridge earthquake (Mw = 6.7, Slymar Station) of 1994 and the Kobe earthquake (Mw = 6.9, Takatori Station) of 1995. None of the buildings collapsed under these strong events in the computer analyses. However, when compared against the acceptable limits for various performance levels in FEMA 356 document, the damage in terms of plastic deformation at the ends of beams and columns and at joints would render the buildings inadequate in terms of life safety in quite a few cases and would even indicate possible collapse in a couple of cases. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
