Critical earthquake load inputs for multi-degree-of-freedom inelastic structures

The problem of modeling earthquake ground motions as design inputs for multi-degree-of-freedom inelastic structures is studied. The earthquake acceleration is expressed as a Fourier series modulated by an envelope function. The coefficients of the series representation are calculated such that the structure inelastic deformation is maximized subjected to predefined constraints. These constraints are taken to reflect known characteristics of recorded earthquakes such as upper bounds on the energy and peak values of the ground acceleration, velocity and displacement and upper and lower limits on the Fourier spectra of the ground acceleration. The material stress–strain behavior is modeled using bilinear and elastic–plastic relations. The resulting nonlinear optimization problem is solved by using the sequential quadratic optimization method. Issues related to various forms of energy dissipated by the inelastic structure are explored. The study also examines the effect of nonlinear damping models and the influence of the strain hardening ratio (ratio of the post-yield stiffness to the pre-yield stiffness) on the derived optimal earthquake and associated inelastic deformation. The formulation is demonstrated for a two-storey inelastic building frame with nonlinear damping.