Accounting for the Spatial Variability of Seismic Motion in the Pushover Analysis of Regular and Irregular RC Buildings in the New Italian Building Code

Abstract

Pushover analysis is the main methodology adopted in practice-oriented applications for investigating the non-linear response of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings; it is applicable for both new and existing buildings. It is well-known that several limitations characterize this methodology and the scientific literature proposes several non-conventional approaches to provide results comparable to those of the more efficient nonlinear dynamic analysis. In most recent seismic guidelines, some improvements have been introduced, in order to overcome the main drawbacks of conventional pushover methods, in view of practice-oriented applications. In particular, new prescriptions are related to the load profiles and the choice of control nodes, aspects that lead to different results in terms of capacity curves and in the safety assessment. Another relevant point is represented by the spatial combination of effects, which suggests the opportunity of executing simultaneous bi-directional pushover analyses. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of the new trends followed by some guidelines about pushover analysis, such as the recent 2018 release of the Italian Building Code. In particular, after a general test of the new conventional procedure for the case of RC buildings, a set of case studies has been generated, consisting of three-dimensional RC-archetypes specifically designed and investigated in order to cover the more significant scenarios. The results in terms of global and local performances are processed and critically analyzed, with the aim of appraising the main differences between the traditional and new approaches and identifying the effectiveness and of the actual improvements achieved.

Assessment of Strength Reduction Factor on Concrete Moment Frames According to the New Venezuelan Seismic Code

“…The nonlinear pushover analysis is a tool that has mainly been used to evaluate the seismic response of building structures. The advantage of the nonlinear pushover analysis is that it is efficient for obtaining the structural response at different levels of demand as is specified in [14,[27][28][29]. The application of a static load pattern distributed along the height of the structure, which monotonically increases until the global collapse mechanism of the structure, is performed in the nonlinear static pushover analysis method.…”

Seismic Performance Assessment of a Moment-Resisting Frame Steel Warehouse Provided with Overhead Crane

“…This analysis method has notable advantages, such as its moderate computational cost and intuitive nature. However, it also has a series of disadvantages, such as the lack of representativeness of its results in the case of irregular structures or structures with characteristics that make it challenging to define lateral loads based on known patterns [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. These analyses are particularly useful for evaluating the capacity of steel structures to carry out pre-and post-seismic strengthening procedures [ 28 ].…”

Influence of the angle of seismic incidence of long-period pulse-like ground motion on an irregular base-isolated building

“…Skoulidou and Romao proposed an assessment method for the critical ASI based on a lateral force analysis (Skoulidou and Romao, 2017). Ruggieri and Uva studied the influence of the loading direction on the nonlinear behavior of regular and irregular buildings based on pushover analysis (Ruggieri and Uva, 2020). The influence of the ASI on the probabilistic seismic assessment results has also been studied by Lagaros (Lagaros, 2010) and Skoulidou and Romao (Skoulidou and Romao, 2020;Skoulidou and Romao, 2021).…”