Considerations of Multimode Structural Response for Near-Field Earthquakes

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation of multimode effects of tall buildings idealized as a continuous shear-beam model subjected to near-field pulse-like ground motion. The investigation is based on three analytical approaches: a damped wave solution approach, a fundamental-mode approach, and a modal summation approach. In the modal summation approach, all modal damping ratios are assumed to be equal and a set of Green’s functions for the shear strain response is explicitly derived. The multimode effects on the base-level shear strain/force demands are compared by using an effective response spectrum for shear-beam systems. The study results show that the occurrence of major spectral differences is conditioned on the ratio of the fundamental structural period to the duration of the predominant excitation pulse. Seismic analyses for a set of recorded near-field earthquake data indicate a strong correlation between the characteristics of effective response spectra and the ground pulse parameters.