Stochastic Dynamic Analysis of Inelastic Structures Using Force Analogy Method

Abstract

The force analogy method which has been proven to be very efficient in dynamic analysis of inelastic structures is here introduced for the first time into the field of stochastic dynamic analysis for inelastic structures. This stochastic force analogy method (SFAM) maintains the advantage of the high efficiency in the numerical computation of the force analogy method in dynamic analysis. According to the SFAM, the variance covariance functions of inelastic dynamic responses, such as displacement, velocity, inelastic displacement of the entire moment-resisting framed structures, and plastic rotation at individual plastic hinge location, can be produced for structures subject to random excitation. Detailed theoretical development of the SFAM is derived, and a simple numerical example using a single degree of freedom system is presented. The reasonability of the proposed method is validated by the good agreement between the results from the proposed SFAM and those obtained from Monte Carlo simulation.