CE 6705

Analysis & Design of Buildings Against

Hazards

Professor
Associate T. Balendra
Professor T. Balendra

Department of Civil Engineering

Faculty of Engineering
National University of Singapore
Chapter 1:
Analysis of Buildings to Earthquakes

1. Earthquake Loading
Earthquakes are vibrations of the earth’s surface caused by sudden
movements of the earth’s crust which consists of a number of thick rock
plates that float on the earth’s molten mantle. The plates drift on
convection currents generated by hot spots deep within the earth. As the
plates move, due to interlocking at the plate boundaries, they deform. As
a result, stress builds up and when the shear stress exceeds the strength
of the rock, a rupture occurs along the fault line in the rock and energy is
released in the form of seismic waves. The origin of the fracture is
known as the focus of the earthquake (Fig 1). Two kinds of body waves
are propagated from the focus. The first is the compressional or P wave,
which is propagated as an expanding sphere of disturbance. The second
is the S wave which is characterized by shearing distortion without any
volumetric change. The point on the surface directly above the focus is
called the epicentre of the earthquake. When body waves strike the free
surface, they give rise to two kinds of surface waves. The first are called
the Love waves, consist of horizontal motion of the surface transverse to
the direction of propagation. The second are called Rayleigh waves, in
which surface particles move in vertical retrograde elliptical orbits. The
body-wave amplitudes decay at the rate of r2, where r is radial distance
from the focus, whereas the surface-wave amplitudes decay at the rate of
r1/2. As the latter decay much less rapidly, the earthquakes may be felt
hundreds of miles from their epicentres, and contribute to most of the
earthquake damage.

The ground motion due to seismic waves is measured by the strong

motion accelerograph, a device sensitive to the intensities of ground
motion most likely to affect structures. It records three components of
ground acceleration, two horizontal and one vertical. An example of a

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strong motion record is shown in Fig 2. The recorded horizontal
acceleration, after correction for instrument characteristics, is digitized
and then integrated to obtain the velocity and displacement time
histories shown in Fig 2.

Since the foundation is the point of contact between the building

and the earth, the seismic waves act on the building by shaking the
foundation back and forth. The mass of the building resists this motion,
setting up inertia forces throughout the structure. Vertical inertia forces
are generally ignored, however, since buildings are already designed for
static vertical loading and hence they are strong in this direction. Thus
only the horizontal inertia forces are considered, which may exceed the
wind forces acting on a structure.

The magnitude of the horizontal inertia force depends on the

building’s mass, ground acceleration, and the type of structure. If a
building and its foundation were rigid, it would have the same
acceleration as the ground and the peak lateral force would be mass
times the peak acceleration. In reality, this is never the case, since all
buildings are flexible to some degree. For a structure that deforms only
slightly, thereby absorbing some energy, the force may be less than the
product of mass and acceleration. But a very flexible structure, having a
natural period near that of the ground motion, may be subject to a much
larger force. Thus the magnitude of lateral force on a building depends
not only on the peak acceleration of the ground motion but also on the
frequency content. The importance of the frequency content was well
illustrated by the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. The ground motion at
Mexico City had a predominant period of 2 seconds. This coincided with
the natural period of vibration in buildings in the medium height range,
typically six to twenty storeys, many of which collapsed or suffered
serious damage whereas the other buildings were practically unaffected.

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2. Response Spectrum Analysis of SDOF
The most widely adopted method of studying the frequency
content of earthquakes is by the response spectrum technique. The
response spectrum of an earthquake depicts the variation of peak
dynammic response of a single degree of freedom system (SDOF) for
different values of its natural frequency, and for a particular damping
ratio. Consider a single storey shear building subjected to ground motion
vg(t) as shown in Fig 3. The mass is not subjected to any external
loading, thus for equilibrium

FI + FD + FS = 0 (1)

in which FI is the inertia force, FD is the dumping force and FS the elastic
restoring force. The inertia force depends on total acceleration of the
mass v t which is given

v t ( t ) = 
 vg ( t ) + 
v (t ) (2)

where v is the displacement of the mass relative to the base.

Thus the governing equation of motion becomes

 + cv + kv = Peff ( t )
mv (3)

where

Peff ( t ) = − m
vg (4)

is the effective force resulting from the ground motion. The other
symbols m, c and k are mass, damping coefficient and stiffness.

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 The solution to Eq.(3) for zero initial condition is given by the
Duhamel integral. Neglecting the small difference between the damped
frequency and undamped frequency and neglecting the negative sign in
Eq.(4), as it is of little interest in earthquake response analysis, we have

1 
t
v ( t ) =  ∫ 
vg (τ ) e −ζ w( t −τ )
sin w ( t − τ ) dτ  (5)
w 0 
The above equation gives the time history response of relative
displacement which is a function of the natural frequency, w, and the
damping ratio, ζ, of the system.

The maximum relative displacement is determined from the maximum

value of the integral which is denoted as Sv (w, ζ) and is called the
spectral pseudo velocity, viz.

t 
Sv ( w, ζ ) =  ∫ 
vg (τ ) e −ζ w( t −τ )
sin w ( t − τ ) dτ  (6)
0  max

Inview of Eq.(6), the maximum relative displacement is given by

1
[ v ( t )]max = w
Sv ( w, ζ ) = Sd ( w, ζ ) (7)

where Sd is the spectral displacement. The maximum absolute

acceleration or the spectral acceleration, Sa, may be expressed as

S a ( w, ζ ) = w2 S d ( w, ζ ) (8)

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 For a given earthquake record, by assuming a specific value of
damping for the SDOF oscillator, it is possible to plot the variation of Sa ,
Sv and Sd with the natural period or frequency of the oscillator. The
graph showing such variation is called the response spectrum of the
earthquake motion. For example, the acceleration response spectrum Eℓ-
Centro earthquake is shown in Fig 4. The sharp peaks and valleys in the
response spectrum are due to local resonances in the ground motion
record. Such irregularities are not of fundamental significance and may
be smoothed out by averaging the response spectra of number of
different earthquake records which are normalized to a particular
intensity level, to obtain the design spectrum. In Fig 5, a design
spectrum normalized to a peak ground acceleration of 1g is presented.

3. Response Spectrum Analysis of MDOF

When a shear building with N stories shown in Fig 6 is subjected

to base excitation, the governing equations of motion take the form

[ M ]{v} + [ C]{v } + [ K ]{v} = − [ M ]{1} 

vg (9)

where v g is the ground acceleration, {v} is the displacement vector of

floor masses with respect to the base, {1} represents a unit vector, and
[M], [C] and [K] are the mass, dampers and stiffness matrices.

For linear system with proportional damping, Eq.(9) can be solved

effectively by modal analysis. For earthquake response analysis, the
modal analysis technique becomes much more efficient, because the
ground motions tend to excite strongly only the lowest few modes of
vibration. Thus, Eq.(9) can be reduced to n modal equations of the form:

qr + 2ζ r wr qr + wr 2 qr = −vg γ r , r = 1, 2,...... n (10)

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where n ( ≤ N) is the number of significant modes and the modal
coordinate qr is related to the displacement of the i-th mass as follows:

n
vi = ∑ Φ ir qr (11)
r =1

in which Φir is the i-th component of the r-th mode shape vector.
Furthermore, the modal participation factor γr in Eq.(10) is given by

N
∑ mi Φir
γr= i =1
N
(12)

∑ mi Φ 2ir
i =1

Eq.(10) represents the equation of motion of a SDOF system and the

response is obtained from Duhamel integral as

t
γr
qr ( t ) = − ∫ g
v
 (τ ) e −ζ r wr ( t −τ )
sin wr ( t − τ ) dτ (13)
wr o

The time history response of the i-th mass is then determined from
Eq.(11) as

vi ( t ) = Φ i1q1 ( t ) + Φ i 2 q2 ( t ) + ... (14)


 
 

1st modal 2nd modal

response response

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To determine the maximum response, in view of Eq.(6), the maximum
response of the modal coordinate is first obtained from Eq.(3) as

Sv ( wr , ζ r )
( qr )max = γr
wr (15)

= γ r Sd ( wr , ζ r )
where Sd is the spectral displacement corresponding to modal frequency
wr and modal damping ratio ζr in the r-th mode. In view of Eq.(14), the
maximum relative displacement of the i-th mass in the rth mode is given
by

( vir )max = Φ ir ( qr )max (16)

The maximum interstorey drift between any two storeys in the rth mode
may be obtained from

( vi,r − vi −1,r )max = ( Φi,r − Φi −1,r ) γ r Sd ( wr , ζ r ) (17)

The maximum inertia force in the rth mode, at the i-th level is given by

( Fir )max = mi wr2 ( vir )max

(18)
= mi Φ ir γ r Sa ( wr , ζ r )
and the maximum dynamic shear at the kth storey and base shear in the
r-th mode are obtained by summing the inertia forces induced, viz.

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 N
(Vkr )max = γ r Sa ( wr , ζ r ) ∑ mi Φ ir (19a)
i =k

N
( Qr )max = γ r Sa ( wr , ζ r ) ∑ mi Φ ir (19b)
i =1

in which Sa is the spectral acceleration corresponding to modal

frequency wr and damping ratio ζr.

According to Eq.(14), the total response is the sum of modal

responses. Since the maximum response in each mode would occur at
different time, it would be conservative to superpose the maximum
responses obtained for each mode of vibration. The recommended
procedure to determine the most probable maximum response is by the
square root sum square (SRSS) method [1]. Accordingly, the maximum
response R is given by

1/ 2
n 
R =  ∑ ( Rr ) max 
2
(20)
 r =1 
in which (Rr)max is the maximum value of the quantity R (displacement,
drift, base shear etc.) in the r-th mode.

The SRSS method may lead to significant error if the modal

frequencies are closely spaced. For such cases, CQC – complete
quadratic combination method, is recommended [2]. Accordingly,

1/ 2
 n n

R = ∑ ∑ r rs s 
R β R (21)
 r =1 s =1 

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where Rr and Rs are the maximum responses in the rth and sth modes
respectively, and the cross modal coefficient βrs obtained from random
vibration theory is given by

8 (ζ r ζ s ) (ζ r + ρζ s ) ρ 3/ 2
1/ 2
β rs =
(1 − ρ 2 ) + 4ζ rζ s ρ (1 + ρ 2 ) + 4 (ζ r2 + ζ s2 ) ρ 2
2

(22)

in which ρ = ws/wr and ζr and ζs are the damping ratios in the rth and sth
modes.

The elastic response spectrum technique described above would

give the maximum response if the structure remains elastic. Since the
buildings are designed with certain ductility to absorb energy through
inelastic deformation in the event of severe earthquake, the
recommended procedure by the Canadian Code of Practice [3] is to scale
down the response obtained from the elastic response spectrum by a
factor equal to the ratio between equivalent lateral base shear given in
the code (which accounts for ductility, see section 5) and the dynamic
base shear obtained from the elastic response spectrum technique.

Example 1
Compute the maximum floor displacement and storey shear for a six
storey shear building using the elastic response spectrum given in Fig.5
for 5% damping. The peak ground acceleration is to be taken as .05g.
The mass at various floors, the first three modes, and the corresponding
periods of vibrations are given in Table 1.

Solution
The maximum floor displacement and the maximum inertia force at
floor level i in the rth mode of vibration are given by

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 γr
( vir )max = Φ ir Sa ( wr , ζ r )
wr2

( Fir )max = mi Φir γ r Sa ( wr , ζ r )

The modal participation factor computed from

N
∑ mi Φir
γr = i =1
N
∑ mi Φir2
i =1

for the first three modes are

γ 1 = 2.28
γ 2 = .746
γ 3 = .393

the spectral acceleration for the first three modes are determined from
Fig.5 as

Sa (T1 , ζ 1 ) = Sa (.60, .05) = 2.13g

Sa (T2 , ζ 2 ) = Sa (.20, .05 ) = 3g

Sa (T3 , ζ 3 ) = Sa (.10, .05) = 3g

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Since the spectrum in Fig.5 is for a peak ground acceleration of 1.0g, the
above spectral values must be multiplied by .05 to obtain the spectral
values corresponding to a peak ground acceleration of .05g.

Thus, for mode 1:

2
 .60 
(Vi1 )max = Φ i1 ( 2.28 )   ( 2.13g )(.05 )(1000 )
 2π 
= 21.7Φ i1 mm

( Fi1 )max = mi Φi1 ( 2.28 )( 2.13g )(.05)

= 2.38mi Φ i1 N
For mode 2:

2
 .20 
(Vi 2 )max = Φ i 2 (.746 )   ( 3g )(.05 )(1000 )
 2π 
= 1.1Φ i 2 mm

( Fi 2 )max = mi Φi 2 (.746 )( 3g )(.05)

= 1.1mi Φ i 2 N

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For mode 3:
2
 .10 
(Vi 3 )max = Φ i 3 (.393)   ( 3g )(.05 )(1000 )
 2π 
= .146Φ i 3 mm

( Fi 3 )max = mi Φ i 3 (.393)( 3g )(.05)

= .578 mi Φ i 3 N

The maximum modal displacements and inertia forces at various floor

levels are tabulated in Table 2 for the first three modes. From the inertia
forces, the maximum modal storey shears Vir are computed from statics.
Since the frequencies are well separated, the modal maxima are
combined using SRSS method to obtain the most probable maximum
floor displacements and storey shears.

4. Site and Soil-Structure Interaction Effects

When the seismic waves propagate through the soil layer overlying
the rock, the soil layer filters the high frequency components of rock
motion and introduces a large proportion of longer period components
centred around the site period. Thus the surface motion could be
significantly different from the rock motion both in magnitude and
frequency content due to the site effect. Seed, Ugas and Lysmer [4] have
obtained earthquake response spectra for different soil conditions (Fig.7).
It is seen that the effect of subsoil is to magnify the ground motion

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around the site period. Thus if the building period happened to be in the
neighbourhood of the site period, there will be a resonance effect at the
structure – soil period. Balendra and Heidebrecht [5] proposed a
foundation factor that could be used in a building code to account for the
amplification of base shear in buildings founded on stiff soil, deep
cohesionless and soft soil, considering both the site and soil – structure
interaction effects. The latter permits additional degrees of freedom to
the footing (translation and rocking motions for two dimensional
structures) due to deformation of soil around the footing during energy
transmission between the soil and structure. The translation component
is important for short buildings whereas the rocking component is
significant for tall buildings. However, the soil – structure interaction
has another important effect, which is the energy dissipation due to
radiation of waves into the soil medium. This increases the damping of
the system substantially. Consequently, the effect of soil – structure
interaction on the base shear could be conservatively neglected [6].
Because of rocking, the deflection increases for taller buildings, but the
effect is small. Thus the building supported on soil layer could be
analysed by the method described in the preceding section, using the
appropriate response spectrum which accounts for the site effect. In the
absence of such spectrum, Balendra, Tan and Lee [7], modified the
power spectral density of the rock motion to account for the site effect
and obtained the power spectral density of the ground motion. From
which the most probable maximum response of buildings was obtained,
using random vibration theory.

5. Equivalent Lateral Load Analysis

In this method, the dynamic problem is reduced to a static problem. The

base shear, Q, induced during earthquake motion is expressed as a
fraction of the weight of the building, viz.

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 Q = Cs W (23)

where W is the total dead load plus part of live load that could possibly
present, Cs the seismic coefficient which is expressed in many different
ways in various building codes. However, a useful general version to
illustrate the salient feature is given by Smith [8] as

Cs = A S I / R (24)

in which A is the site dependent effective peak acceleration (as a

fraction of g), S the seismic response factor, I the importance factor, R a
factor related to ductility of the structure.

The effective peak acceleration, A, is related to the seismicity of

the site. The appropriate value of A may be obtained from a seismic
zoning map given in building codes. Since the spectral velocity is almost
constant over the practical range of building periods, the value of A is
related to the peak velocity given in the seismic zone maps. The seismic
response factor, S, takes into account the influence of period of the
building and the effect of soil condition. The recommended variation of
S (Fig.8) with period is given by Applied Technology Council [6]. The
three types of soil condition S1, S2, and S3 are described as follows:

S1: Rock of any type with a shear wave velocity greater than about
750m/s; shallow stable deposits of sands, gravels or stiff clays
overlying the rock.
S2: Deep cohesionless or stiff clay deposit of 50 to 100 m depth.
S3: Soft to medium stiff clays and sands with a depth of 10 m or more.

The period of the building, T (in seconds), required to estimate the

seismic response factor may be calculated as follows [8]:

1) For moment resisting frames with N storeys,

T = .1N (25)

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2) For shearwall buildings and braced steel frames with height H (in
meters) and breadth B (in meters) in the direction of seismic forces,

T = .09H/ B1/2 (26)

The importance factor I is introduced to ensure certain categories of

buildings are designed for greater level of safety;

I= 1.5 is used for buildings which are essential after an earthquake

such as hospitals, fire station etc.

I= 1.2 is used for places of assembly such as schools, theatres etc.

I= 1.0 is used for other types of buildings.

The factor R accounts for the ductility capacity of the structure, which is
defined as the ratio of displacement at ultimate load to the displacement
at yield, as illustrated in Fig.9. It also reflects the ability of different
structural forms to develop alternative load paths. The values of R for
different structural system are indicated in Table 3.

The base shear calculated from Eq.23, are distributed along the
height of the building. The distribution of lateral force along the height
of the building depends on the mode shape of the building. Thus the
base shear obtained from Eq.23 may be distributed as

 
 mi hi 
Fi = Q (27)
 ∑ mi hi 
 
 i 
where Fi is the lateral force at level i, mi the mass at level i, and hi the
height of level i from the base. The above distribution assumes a linear
mode as the fundamental mode. This assumption is valid for regular

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short period buildings as the influence of higher modes is small, and the
mode shape is approximately linear. However, for long period buildings,
the influence of higher modes can be significant, and in regular tall
buildings the fundamental mode lies approximately between a straight
line and a parabola. In order to reflect the contribution of higher modes,
the Applied Technology Council [6] has proposed the following
distribution,

mi hik
Fi = Q (28)
∑ mi hik
i

where the value of k is taken as follows:

k = 1 for T < .5 sec.

k = 2 for T > 2.5 sec. }
For periods between .5 and 2.5 seconds, k is obtained by a linear
interpolation.

As the ground motion could act in any direction with respect to the
principal orthogonal axes, the resultant response is obtained by
combining the response due to 100% of lateral forces along one axis
with the response due to 30% of the lateral forces in the orthogonal axis.

The equivalent lateral force analysis is not applicable to buildings

of irregular form, irregular mass or stiffness distribution or of unusual
shape. Furthermore, the method is not useful when information on the
motion of the building is required. For such cases, dynamic analysis is
recommended.

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Table 1 Properties of building for Example 1

Floor Level Mass (kg) Mode 1 Mode 2 Mode 3

i mi Φil Φi2 Φi3

6 1.2 x 106 .550 –.520 .455

5 1.2 x 106 .520 –.252 –.135

4 1.2 x 106 .456 .140 –.560

3 1.2 x 106 .365 .460 –.254

2 1.2 x 106 .254 .560 .372

1 1.2 x 106 .120 .368 .520

Period (sec)
.60 .20 .10
Tr

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 Table 2 Computation of floor displacement and storey shear for Example 1

(v1)max (v2)max (v3)max v max (Fi1)max (Vi1)max (Fi2)max (Vi2)max (Fi3)max (Vi3)max V max
Floor Storey
(mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (x 106N) (x 106N) (x 106N) (x 106N) (x 106N) (x 106N) (x 106N)

6 11.64 –.572 .066 11.65 1.57 –.686 .316

6 1.57 –.686 .316 1.74

5 11.28 –.277 –.02 11.28 1.49 –.333 –.094

5 3.06 –1.02 .222 3.23

4 9.90 .154 –.082 9.90 1.3 .185 –.389

4 4.36 –.834 –.167 4.44

3 7.92 .506 –.037 7.94 1.04 .607 –.176

3 5.40 –.227 –.343 5.42

2 5.51 .616 .054 5.54 .73 .739 .258

2 6.13 .512 –.085 6.15

1 2.60 .405 .076 2.63 .34 .486 .361

Pg 18

1 6.47 .998 .276 6.55

Table 3 The R factor to account for ductility

Type of structural system Seismic resisting system R

Building frame system: Reinforced concrete

5.5
shear walls
An essentially complete space
frame providing support for Braced frames 5.0
vertical loads. Seismic resistance
is provided by shear walls or Unreinforced masonary
braces frames. 1.5
shear walls
Moment-resisting frame:
Reinforced concrete
7.0
Similar to above except that frames
seismic force resistance is
provided by special moment
resisting frames capable of Steel frames 8.0
resisting the total seismic forces.
Dual system:
Reinforced concrete
8.0
Seismic resistance is provided shear walls
by a combination of special
moment-resisting frames (at least
25% of seismic forces) and shear Braced frames 6.0
walls or braced frames.
Inverted pendulum structure:
Special moment-resisting
Where the framing acts
frame of steel or 2.5
essentially as a vertical cantilever
reinforced concrete
resisting seismic and vertical
load, e.g. elevated storage tanks.

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 Fig. 1 Types of seismic waves

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 Fig. 2 Earthquake strong motion record

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 (b)

(a)

Fig. 3 a) One storey shear building subjected to ground motion,

b) forces acting on the floor masses

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 Fig. 4 Acceleration response spectrum for Eℓ-Centro earthquake of
May 18, 1940 (N-S Component)

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Fig. 5 Design spectrum normalized to a peak ground acceleration of 1g

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 Fig. 6 N – Storey shear building subjected to ground motion

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 Fig. 7 Average acceleration spectra for different site conditions

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 Fig. 8 Seismic response factor for A = 1.0

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 Fig. 9 Lateral forces in ductile design and elastic design

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