FREE VIBRATION AND EARTHQUAKE ANALYSIS OF A BUILDING

14 FREE VIBRATION AND EARTHQUAKE ANALYSIS OF A BUILDING

This example demonstrates the natural frequency of a ve-storey building when
subjected to free vibration and earthquake loading.
The building consists of 5 oors and a basement. It is 10 m wide and 17 m high including
basement. The total height from the ground level is 5 x 3 m = 15 m and the basement is
2 m deep. A value of 5 kN/m
2
is taken as the weight of the oors and the walls. The
building is constructed on a clay layer of 15 m depth underlayed by a deep sand layer. In
the model, 25 m of the sand layer will be considered.
14.1 INPUT
General settings
Start the Input program and select Start a new project from the Quick select dialog
box.
In the Project tabsheet of the Project properties window, enter an appropriate title
and make sure that Model is set to Plane strain and that Elements is set to 15-Node.
Keep the default units and set the model dimensions to X
min
= 80, X
max
= 80, Y
min
= 40 and Y
max
= 15. Keep the default values for the grid spacing (Spacing = 1 m;
Number of intervals = 1).
x
y 15 m
15 m
25 m
75 m 75 m 10 m
2 m
Figure 14.1 Geometry of the project
14.1.1 GEOMETRY MODEL
Use the Geometry line feature to dene the soil clusters.
Click the Plate button in the toolbar and dene the vertical walls of the building
passing through (-5; 0) to (-5; 15) and through (5; 0) to (5; 15).
Use the same feature to dene the vertical walls of the basement passing through
(-5; -2) to (-5; 0) and through (5; -2) to (5; 0).
Dene the oors and the basement of the building, passing through (-5; -2) to (5; -2),
(-5; 0) to (5; 0), (-5; 3) to (5; 3), (-5; 6) to (5; 6), (-5; 9) to (5; 9), (-5; 12) to (5; 12) and
(-5; 15) to (5; 15).
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Click the Node-to-node anchor button to dene the column at the centre of the
building connecting consecutive oors, (0; -2) to (0; 0), (0; 0) to (0; 3), (0; 3) to (0; 6),
(0; 6) to (0; 9), (0; 9) to (0; 12) and (0; 12) to (0; 15).
Dene an interface to model the interaction between soil and building around the
basement oor.
Dene a static lateral force of 1 kN/m at the top left corner of the building by clicking
the Point load - Load system A button in the toolbar and by clicking on the location of
the load.
Dene a prescribed displacement at the bottom of the model, through (-80; -40) and
(80; -40).
Assign the values for the components of the prescribed displacement as (0.01; 0).
In the Loads menu set point to Set dynamic load system and select the Prescribed
displacement option from the appearing menu.
The option of Standard xities is used to assign full restraints on the movements in
horizontal direction on the vertical boundaries on two sides and full restraints in both
the horizontal and vertical directions along the lowermost horizontal geometry line.
Select the Standard earthquake boundaries option in the Loads menu. The model
layout is displayed in Figure 14.2.
Figure 14.2 Geometry of the model
14.1.2 MATERIAL PROPERTIES
The properties of the subsoil are given in Table 14.1 and the plate properties are provided
in Table 14.3. The upper layer consists of mostly clayey soil and the lower one is sandy.
Both have HS small model properties. The plates, representing the walls and the oors in
the building, are considered to be linear elastic. The presence of the groundwater is
neglected. The clusters of the building are lled with soil material when generating the
mesh, but these clusters are deactivated in the initial situation. The physical damping in
the building is simulated by means of Rayleigh damping. The soil layers with HS small
model properties have inherent hysteretic damping.
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Table 14.1 Material properties of the subsoil layers
Parameter Name Upper clayey
layer
Lower sandy
layer
Unit
General
Material model Model HS small HS small -
Type of material behaviour Type Drained Drained -
Soil unit weight above phreatic
level

unsat
16 20 kN/m
3
Soil unit weight above phreatic
level

sat
20 20 kN/m
3
Parameters
Secant stiffness in standard
drained triaxial test
E
ref
50
2.010
4
3.010
4
kN/m
2
Tangent stiffness for primary
oedometer loading
E
ref
oed
2.56110
4
3.60110
4
kN/m
2
Unloading / reloading stiffness E
ref
ur
9.48410
4
1.10810
5
kN/m
2
Power for stress-level dependency
of stiffness
m 0.5 0.5 -
Cohesion c'
ref
10 5 kN/m
2
Friction angle ' 18 28

Dilatancy angle 0 0

Shear strain at which G
s
=
0.722G
0

0.7
1.210
-4
1.510
-4
-
Shear modulus at very small
strains
G
ref
0
2.710
5
1.010
5
kN/m
2
Poisson's ratio '
ur
0.2 0.2 -
When subjected to cyclic shear loading, the HS small model will show typical hysteretic
behaviour. Starting from the small-strain shear stiffness, G
ref
0
, the actual stiffness will
decrease with increasing shear. Figures 14.3 and 14.4 display the Modulus reduction
curves, i.e. the decay of the shear modulus with strain.
0
100000
50000
150000
200000
250000
S
h
e
a
r
m
o
d
u
l
u
s
Shear strain
0.00001 0.0001 0.001 0.01
G
t
Gs

0.7
0.722G
0
G used
Figure 14.3 Modulus reduction curves for the upper clayey layer
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20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
S
h
e
a
r
m
o
d
u
l
u
s
Shear strain
0.00001 0.0001 0.001 0.01
G
t
Gs

0.7
0.722G
0
G used
Figure 14.4 Modulus reduction curve for the lower sandy layer
In the HS small model, the tangent shear modulus is bounded by a lower limit, G
ur
.
G
ur
=
E
ur
2(1 +
ur
)
The values of G
ref
ur
for the Upper clayey layer and Lower sandy layer and the ratio to G
ref
0
are shown in Table 14.2. This ratio determines the maximum damping ratio that can be
obtained.
Table 14.2 G
ur
values and ratio to G
ref
0
Parameter Unit Upper clayey
layer
Lower sandy
layer
G
ur
kN/m
2
39517 41167
G
ref
0
/G
ur
- 6.75 2.5
Figures 14.5 and 14.6 show the damping ratio as a function of the shear strain for the
material used in the model. For a more detailed description and elaboration from the
modulus reduction curve to the damping curve can be found in the literature

.
0
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
D
a
m
p
i
n
g
r
a
t
i
o
Cyclic shear strain
0.00001 0.0001 0.001 0.01
Figure 14.5 Damping curve for the upper clayey layer

Brinkgreve, R.B.J., Kappert, M.H., Bonnier, P.G. (2007). Hysteretic damping in small-strain stiffness model. In
Proc. 10th Int. Conf. on Comp. Methods and Advances in Geomechanics. Rhodes, Greece, 737 742
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0
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
D
a
m
p
i
n
g
r
a
t
i
o
Cyclic shear strain
0.00001 0.0001 0.001 0.01
Figure 14.6 Damping curve for the lower sandy layer
Dene the material dataset for the for the plates representing the structure according to
Table 14.3. Note that two different material datasets are used. Assign the Basement
material dataset to the vertical plates (2) and the lowest horizontal plate (all under the
ground level) in the model. A description of Rayleigh damping parameters is given in
Section 4.1.1 or the Reference Manual.
Table 14.3 Material properties of the building (plate properties)
Parameter Name Rest of building Basement Unit
Material type Type Elastic; Isotropic Elastic -
Normal stiffness EA 9.010
6
1.210
7
kN/m
Flexural rigidity EI 6.7510
4
1.610
5
kNm
2
/m
Weight w 10 20 kN/m/m
Poisson's ratio 0.0 0.0 -
Rayleigh damping
0.2320 0.2320 -
8.010
-3
8.010
-3
-
Dene the properties of the anchor according to Table 14.4.
Table 14.4 Material properties of the node-to-node anchor
Parameter Name Column Unit
Normal stiffness EA 2.5 10
6
kN
Material type Type Elastic -
Spacing out of plane L
spacing
3.0 m
14.1.3 MESH GENERATION
The mesh has been generated by setting the global coarseness to Fine and rening
locally the building clusters (Figure 14.7).
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Figure 14.7 Mesh of the soil-building system
14.2 CALCULATIONS
The calculation process consists of the initial conditions phase, simulation of the
construction of the building, loading, free vibration analysis and earthquake analysis.
Initial phase
In the General tabsheet the K0 procedure option is automatically selected as
calculation type.
In the Parameters window accept the default values and click Dene.
In the Staged construction mode check that the building and load are inactive.
In the Water conditions mode dene a phreatic level at y = -15.
Click Update to proceed to the Calculations program.
Phase 1
Click Next to add a new phase.
In the General tabsheet the Plastic option is automatically selected as calculation
type.
In the Parameters window accept the default values and click Dene.
In the Staged construction mode construct the building (activate all the plates and
the anchor) and deactivate the basement volume.
Click Update to proceed to the Calculations program.
Figure 14.8 Construction of the building
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Phase 2
Click Next to add a new phase.
In the General tabsheet the Plastic option is automatically selected as calculation
type.
In the Parameters window select the Reset displacement to zero, accept the default
values and click Dene.
In the Staged construction mode activate the load and assign a value of 10 kN/m to
it.
Click Update to proceed to the Calculations program.
Phase 3
Click Next to add a new phase.
In the General tabsheet select the Free vibration option as calculation type.
In the Parameters tabsheet, set the Time interval to 5 sec.
The Additional steps parameter is automatically set to 100. Select the Manual
settings option in the Iterative procedure box and click Dene.
In the Manual settings window set the Dynamic sub steps to 10 and click OK.
Hint: Note that a warning appears when the Dynamic sub steps is set to 10. This
warning is deliberately ignored to reduce the calculation time. However, the
warning should generally be considered in order to obtain accurate results.
Phase 4
Click Next to add a new phase.
In the General tabsheet set the Start from phase option to Phase 1 (construction of
building).
Select the Dynamic option as calculation type.
In the Parameters tabsheet, set the Time interval to 20 sec.
Set the Additional steps parameter to 200. Reset the displacements to zero.
Set the Dynamic substeps to 20 and click OK.
In the Multipliers tabsheet click the button next to MdispX.
In the Dynamic loading window select the Load multiplier from data le option.
Select the 225a.smc le from the examples folder of the program installation
directory.
Select interesting points for curves (e.g. top of the bulding, basement) and calculate
the project.
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14.3 RESULTS
Figure 14.9 shows the deformed structure at the end of the Phase 2 (application of
horizontal load).
Figure 14.9 Deformed mesh of the system
Figure 14.10 shows the time history of displacements of the selected points A (0; 15) for
the free vibration phase. It may be seen from the gure that the vibration slowly decays
with time due to damping in the soil and in the building.
Figure 14.10 Time history of displacements at selected points
In the Chart tabsheet of the Settings window select the Use frequency representation
(spectrum) and Use standard frequency (Hz) options in the Dynamics box. The plot is
shown in Figure 14.11. From this gure it can be evaluated that the dominant building
frequency is around 1 Hz.
Figure 14.12 shows the time history of the lateral acceleration of the selected points A (0;
15) for the earthquake phase (dynamic analysis). For a better visualisation of the results
animations of the free vibration and earthquake can be created.
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Figure 14.11 Frequency representation (spectrum)
Figure 14.12 Variation of acceleration in dynamic time
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