Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128

www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

An upper-bound pushover analysis procedure for estimating the

seismic demands of high-rise buildings
Tysh Shang Jan ∗, Ming Wei Liu, Ying Chieh Kao
Department of Civil Engineering, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC

Received 12 December 2002; received in revised form 28 August 2003; accepted 4 September 2003

Abstract

When evaluating the seismic demands of tall buildings, engineers are more likely to adopt simplified non-linear static analytical
procedures, or pushover analyses, instead of the more complicated non-linear response history analysis. Since the conventional
procedure has some drawbacks in predicting the inelastic seismic demands of high-rise buildings, some improved procedures have
recently been investigated. In this paper, a new simplified pushover analysis procedure, which considers higher mode effects, is
proposed. The basic features of the proposed procedure are: the response spectrum-based higher mode displacement contribution
ratios, a new formula for determining the lateral load pattern and the upper-bound (absolute sum) modal combination rule for
determining the target roof displacement. Five different-height buildings are used as examples to illustrate the application of the
proposed procedure. Three other types of analysis are performed for the purposes of comparison. It will be demonstrated that the
proposed procedure can more precisely estimate important response attributes of tall buildings, such as roof displacements, story
drift ratios and plastic hinge rotations.
 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Seismic demands; Pushover analysis; Target roof displacement

1. Introduction can provide more accurate predictions for floor displace-

In nascent triangular-load pushover analysis (TLP),
the seismic demands are computed by non-linear static
analysis of the structure subjected to lateral forces. These
forces are monotonically increased—with an invariant
linear height-wise distribution—until a predetermined
target displacement is reached. When structures are gov-
erned primarily by first mode response, this procedure
has been shown to provide a relatively good estimate
of the global deformation response [1,2,4,6,7,12,15,16].
However, when higher-mode effects are important, this
procedure is clearly flawed. Recently, several investi-
gators [3,8,9,10] have proposed new pushover analysis
procedures, which will primarily consider higher mode
effects, and will follow elastic modal combination rules.
For low and medium-rise structures, these procedures
∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +8864-24517250 ext 3111; fax:
+8864-24516982.
E-mail address: psjan@fcu.edu.tw (T.S. Jan).
ments and story drift ratios than TLP procedure, but they
still have certain drawbacks when high-rise structures
are being evaluated [11,13]. First, predictions of the roof
displacements and story drift ratios are neither precise
nor conservative. Secondly, they cannot accurately esti-
mate the extent of plastic hinge rotation, which is an
important criterion when appraising the structural safety
of buildings. In order to improve the reliability of the
evaluation of seismic demands for tall buildings, and
ensure they are conservative, this research was under-
taken in order to find a new analytical procedure.
Since the higher mode effects on seismic demand are
dependent on the frequency contents of ground motion
and the characteristics of structural systems [14], this
paper, first, studies the higher mode effects on the dis-
placement responses based on the response history
analysis (RHA), and then proposes a new procedure for
determining the lateral load pattern and target displace-
ment. As practical examples, the following four analyti-
cal procedures are used to estimate seismic demands: the
non-linear response history analysis (NL–RHA), TLP,

0141-0296/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2003.09.003
118 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128

the modal pushover analysis (MPA) and the method of

analysis proposed in this paper. The results obtained by
NL–RHA are treated as ‘exact’ solutions and are com-
pared with those obtained by other procedures. The non-
linear analysis program DRAIN-2D+ [17] is used to pro-
cess various non-linear dynamic and static analyses.

2. Higher-mode contributions to elastic

deformation response

Based on the current seismic code in Taiwan, 2, 5,

10, 20 and 30-storey moment resisting frames of strong
column-weak beam system (see Appendix B) were
designed. Optimal sections of the frames were selected
automatically with the aid of SAP2000 [18]. In order to
analyse the higher-mode contribution to the deformation
response, 13 horizontal records were chosen from Chi-
Chi earthquake in Taiwan, and were applied to the
designed frames. In total, 65 sets of structural motions Fig. 1. The contribution ratios of higher modes to the first mode.
were obtained in the elastic response history analysis.
The procedure for this analysis is outlined as follows:
3. Proposed upper-bound pushover analysis
1. By selecting one of the five designed frames and one procedure
of the 13 horizontal ground motion records üg(t), the
governing equation of motion—after static conden- The principle steps of the proposed pushover analysis
sation—can be written as follows [3]: procedure are as follows:
mü ⫹ cu̇ ⫹ ku ⫽ ⫺m␫üg(t) (1)
1. Select a building and find its elastic structural proper-
where u is a vector of N lateral floor displacements ties—the natural frequencies and mode shapes. Also,
relative to the ground, m, c, and k are the mass, normalize mode shape fn such that the roof degree
classical damping, and lateral stiffness matrices of the of freedom frn = 1 for all modes.
system, and ␫ is the influence column vector with each 2. Use the elastic response spectrum of the selected
element equal to unity. earthquake to determine the upper-bound of the con-
2. The displacement response u(t) can be determined by tribution ratio of the 2nd mode, (q2/q1)UB, as given by
solving Eq. (1) numerically, and a constant vector u0 the following expression (see Appendix E):

冉冊 | |
is selected from u(t) at the time instant when the roof
displacement reaches its elastic maximum. q2 ⌫2D2
⫽ (3)
3. The modal co-ordinate qi,0 of u0 can be obtained as q1 UB ⌫1D1
follows [5]:
where ⌫n (n = 1,2) is the modal participation factor
fTimu0
qi,0 ⫽ (2) and Dn (n = 1,2) is the displacement obtained from
fTimfi the elastic displacement response spectrum.
where fi is the ith natural vibration mode of the struc- 3. Determine the distribution vector of the lateral loads
ture. over the height of the building using the following
formula (see Appendix E):

冉冊
From step 1 to 3, the displacement–response contri-
q2
bution of a higher mode compared to the fundamental fs,UB ⫽ w21mf1 ⫹ w22mf2· (4)
mode can be expressed as a ratio qi,0/q1,0. Fig. 1 shows q1 UB

the ratios obtained for the first four higher modes as a where wn (n = 1,2) is the natural frequency for the
function of the fundamental period. From the envelope nth-mode.
curves of the contribution ratios, it can be seen that the 4. Determine the target roof displacement ur,UB as given
first two modes dominate the displacement response and by the following relationship (see Appendix E):

冋 冉冊册
the third or higher modes can be ignored. Hence, only
the first two modes are considered in the following pro- q2
ur,UB ⫽ ur,TLP 1 ⫹ (5)
posed pushover analysis procedure. q1 UB
 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128 119

where ur,TLP is the target displacement predicted by 1. For the 2 and 5-story buildings [Figs. 2(a) and 3(a)],
TLP of which the detailed procedure is presented in for which the 2nd mode effects are not significant,
Appendix A. both TLP and MPA procedures are better than the
5. The seismic demands of a given structure are determ- proposed procedure in predicting floor displacements.
ined by a non-linear static analysis of the structure Although, in the 2-story case, the proposed procedure
subjected to the lateral forces which have a distri- is slightly better in predicting the 2nd floor displace-
bution vector in the form fs,UB [Eq. (4)], and are pro- ment, the error is greater at the 1st floor, as compared
gressively increased from zero until the target dis- to those predicted by the TLP and MPA methods. For
placement ur,UB [Eq. (5)] is reached. the 5-story case, the upper-bound procedure overesti-
mates the 2nd mode contribution ratio and thus under-
estimates the displacements up to the 3rd floor, and
4. Numerical examples overestimates that of the fifth floor, while the dis-
placements predicted by the TLP and MPA methods
For comparison purposes, simulations were made for are in good agreement with those calculated by the
the NL–RHA, TLP, MPA and the proposed upper-bound NL–RHA.
pushover analysis procedure. The structures shown in the 2. For the 10-story building [Fig. 4(a)], the TLP and
first column in Table 1 were designed to meet Taiwan’s MPA procedures overestimate floor displacements at
current earthquake code, their configurations and first the lower stories and underestimate those at the upper
three natural periods being outlined in Appendix B. The stories; the proposed procedure, on the other hand,
earthquakes chosen in column 3 are those having more underestimates floor displacements at the lower sto-
striking second-mode effects on the structure specified ries and overestimates those at the upper stories. The
in the same row, more characteristics of these earth- errors made by all methods are of the same order
quakes being found in Appendix C. The earthquake data though they may be in opposite sign.
were scaled in such a way as to show a PGA, as can be 3. For the 20- and 30-story buildings [Figs. 5(a) and
seen in the table, such that one of the plastic hinge 6(a)], for which the 2nd mode effects are more sig-
rotations of the structure reached 0.015 rad in the NL– nificant, the proposed procedure is much better than
RHA procedure. For the MPA procedure in the follow- the TLP and MPA procedures. For the 20-story build-
ing study, the first three modes were analysed and com- ing, it still underestimates the floor displacements, but
bined according to the SRSS rule. the errors are much smaller than those estimated by
The numerical results are shown in Figs. 2–7. As in TLP and MPA procedures. The contribution of the
Fig. 2, for example, Fig. 2(a,b) show the peak values of 2nd mode is obvious if one deducts the contribution
floor displacements and story drift ratios, respectively, of the linear mode from the total deflections. For the
while the ellipses in Fig. 2(c–f) show the locations of 30-story building, the displacements estimated by the
plastic hinge rotations with the size of each ellipse rep- proposed procedure fit the NL-RHA results extremely
resenting the degree of plastic hinge rotation with a ref- well, while errors made by other procedures are great-
erence size of 0.015 rad on the side of each frame. The er.
values (in rad) of the largest plastic hinge rotations are
written on the sides of the hinges and are shown in Table When predicting story drift ratios, the following
2. The first five largest plastic hinge rotations of each characteristics are observed:
building estimated by different methods are also outlined
in Table 2. The results are discussed in the following 1. For the 2-story building [Fig. 2(b)], the TLP and MPA
sections: accurately estimate the story drift ratio at the first
After estimating floor displacement demands, the fol- story but underestimate it at the second story. The
lowing phenomena were found: proposed procedure overestimates the ratio at the
second story and underestimates it at the first story.
2. For the 5-story building, the TLP and MPA pro-
Table 1 cedures are very effective. They achieve greater accu-
Data of the five analytical cases
racy than the proposed procedure [Fig. 3(b)].
No. of T1 (s) Earthquake PGA q2/q1[ Eq.(3)]
3. For the 10-story building, the TLP and MPA pro-
stories stations (g) cedures overestimate ratios at the lower stories and
underestimate those at the upper stories of the build-
2-storey 0.559 TCU076 0.663 2.02% ing; the proposed procedure, on the other hand, under-
5-storey 1.216 TCU076 0.51 6.03% estimates ratios at the lower stories and overestimates
10-storey 2.077 TCU076 0.43 11.13% those at the upper stories [Fig. 4(b)]. However, the
20-storey 3.425 CHY046 0.439 19.87%
30-storey 4.393 TCU067 0.4 29.72%
MPA procedure is excellent in estimating the ratios
at the near-top stories of the building.
120 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128

Fig. 2. Peak values of floor displacements, story drifts and plastic hinge rotations of a 2-story building (TCU076, PGA = 0.663 g).

Fig. 3. Peak values of floor displacements, story drifts and plastic hinge rotations of a 5-story building (TCU076, PGA = 0.51 g).
 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128
Fig. 4. Peak values of floor displacements, story drifts and plastic hinge rotations of a 10-story building (TCU076, PGA = 0.43 g).
4. For the 20-story building [Fig. 5(b)], the proposed
procedure is better than the TLP and MPA procedures
in predicting story drift ratios. Although the proposed
procedure still underestimates ratios at the lower sto-
ries and overestimates them at the upper stories, the
errors are much smaller than that estimated by the
TLP and MPA procedures. For the 30-story building
[Fig. 6(b)], the proposed procedure is much more
effective than the TLP and MPA procedures in
obtaining story drift ratio profiles at all stories.
In evaluating plastic hinge rotations, some of follow-
ing observations are made:
1. For the 2-story building, as shown in Fig. 2(c–f) and
Table 2, all procedures can predict plastic hinge
rotations fairly well.
2. For the 5-story building, the plastic hinge rotations
predicted by the TLP, MPA and the proposed pro-
cedures [Fig. 3(d–f)] are less severe than that by the
NL–RHA procedure [Fig. 3(c) and Table 2].
3. Fig. 4(c–f) and Table 2 show that, in comparison with
the estimates by NL–RHA procedure, the MPA and
TLP procedures predict locations of plastic hinge
rotation reasonably closely, though with less severity,
while the proposed procedure predicts more severe
121
plastic hinge rotations at upper levels and less severe
ones at lower levels of the 10-story building.
4. For the 20- and 30-story buildings, only the proposed
procedure can predict both the locations and severities
of the plastic hinge rotations with reasonable accu-
racy, [Figs. 5(f) and6(f)], as compared with the NL–
RHA procedure [Figs. 5(c) and 6 (c)]. Very small
plastic hinge rotations are estimated by the TLP and
MPA procedures for these two buildings [Figs. 5(d,e)
and 6 and Table 2].
Using the numerical results of the NL-RHA procedure
as a reference point, the errors in roof drift and the errors
in the maximum story drift ratio are shown in Fig. 7(a,b)
respectively. As can be seen from Fig. 7(a), the errors
made by all methods are acceptably insignificant for
buildings no higher than ten stories, but for buildings
taller than ten stories—whereas the errors induced by the
TLP and MPA procedures are large and underesti-
mated—only the errors arrived at by the proposed pro-
cedure are within an acceptable range. As to the
maximum story drift ratios in Fig. 7(b), the errors from
the TLP and MPA procedures are insignificant for build-
ings up to ten stories high. However, the errors are unac-
ceptably large for buildings higher than ten stories, while
the errors brought about by the proposed procedure are
122 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128
Fig. 5. Peak values of floor displacements, story drifts and plastic hinge rotations of a 20-story building (CHY046, PGA = 0.439 g).
not too serious, around 16%, for such buildings. Again,
Fig. 7(a,b) suggest that, in the evaluation of seismic
demands, the TLP and MPA procedures are excellent for
buildings not taller than 10 stories while the proposed
procedure is very effective for buildings taller than 10
stories.
5. Conclusions
A simplified pushover analysis procedure, which takes
into account higher mode effects, for the non-linear seis-
mic evaluation of planar building frames, referred to as
the upper-bound method, has been proposed. It can be
applied to the evaluation of both newly designed and
existing structures. In this study, the elastic displace-
ment-response contribution ratios of the higher modes,
as compared to the 1st mode, were obtained through
simulations of five elaborately designed buildings (2–30
stories) subjected to 13 strong earthquake motions gener-
ated by the history records of the Chi-Chi Earthquake.
The results showed that the envelope of the 2nd mode
contribution ratio increases in an approximate linear
fashion with the height of the building and that other
higher mode contribution ratios are negligible. More
numerical simulations were then performed in order to
evaluate the floor displacements, story drift ratios and
hinge plastic rotations of buildings. This was done by
applying non-linear response history analysis (NL–
RHA), triangle linear pushover analysis (TLP), modal
pushover analysis (MPA) and the method proposed in
this paper to the designed structures subjected to earth-
quakes having more striking higher-mode effects in their
characteristics. The results were fully compared and led
to the following conclusions:
1. For low-rise buildings, e.g. 2 and 5-story, the TLP
and MPA procedures are better than the proposed pro-
cedure in predicting the non-linear responses, includ-
ing floor displacements, story drift ratios and hinge
plastic rotations.
2. For medium high-rise buildings, e.g. 10-story, the
TLP and MPA procedures slightly overestimate non-
linear responses at the lower levels and underestimate
those at the upper levels of the building, while the
proposed procedure, on the contrary, slightly under-
estimates non-linear responses at the lower levels and
overestimates those at the upper levels of the building.
 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128
Fig. 6. Peak values of floor displacements, story drifts and plastic hinge rotations of a 30-story building (TCU067, PGA = 0.4 g).
3. For high-rise buildings, e.g. 20 and 30-story, with sig-
nificant higher mode effects on dynamic responses,
only the proposed procedure can reasonably predict
the non-linear responses or seismic demands of the
buildings. Although the MPA procedure can predict
the story drift ratios very well at the near-top levels
of the buildings, it, along with the TLP procedure, is
unable to accurately predict the hinge plastic rotations
in this situation.
4. It is important to note that the proposed procedure
has a tendency to overestimate the seismic demands at
the upper stories and underestimate them at the lower
stories, while the TLP procedure has the opposite
tendency. Therefore, for safety reasons, one should
evaluate the seismic demands for high-rise build-
ings—of medium or greater height-based on the criti-
cal values (absolute maximum values) that are esti-
mated by both the proposed and TLP procedures.
This paper has focused on developing an upper-bound
pushover analysis procedure and its initial evaluation in
predicting the seismic demands on five different steel
buildings with varying heights. These buildings were of
123
the strong column-weak beam system and were sub-
jected to strong ground motions which had more notice-
able higher mode effects on the structures. The con-
clusions were drawn from the initial data. To affirm
these conclusions more strongly, this new method, of
course, should be tested for a wide variety of buildings—
such as reinforced concrete (RC) frames, multi-bay
steel/RC frames and frames with different beam-to-col-
umn stiffness ratios—and a variety of ground motion
patterns. Work in this area continues.
Acknowledgements
This research is funded by the National Science Coun-
cil, Taiwan, ROC, under grant number NSC-90-2211-E-
035-014. This financial support is gratefully acknowl-
edged. The authors also appreciate the valuable sugges-
tions of the reviewers.
124 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128

Appendix A. : Predicting roof displacements ur,TLP

of MDOF systems using equivalent SDOF systems
[13]

1. Apply a lateral triangle-pattern load over the height

of the building and conduct a pushover analysis.
2. Idealize the Base Shear (V)–Roof Displacement
(ur,TLP) response of the structure into a bilinear
response as shown in Fig. 8(a). The corresponding
force–deformation characteristics of the equivalent
SDOF system is shown in Fig. 8(b). The transform-
ation formulas are as follows:
fTmf
u∗y ⫽ u (A.1)
fTm1 r,y
Qy∗ ⫽ fTQy (A.2)
where Qy is the story force vector at yield; i.e. Vy =
1TQy.
3. Compute the initial period Teq of the equivalent
SDOF system:
uy∗M∗
Fig. 7. Errors in roof drift and the maximum story drift ratio
demands.
Teq ⫽ 2p 冪Q ∗
y
(A.3)

where M∗ = jTm1, denoting the mass of the equival-

ent SDOF system.

Table 2
Magnitudes and locations of the plastic hinge rotationa

Building NL-RHA MPA TLP Proposed

2-story 0.01500 (B-1-R) 0.01342 (B-1-R) 0.01367 (B-1-R) 0.01713 (B-2-R)

0.01467 (B-2-R) 0.01151 (B-2-R) 0.01204 (B-2-R) 0.01328 (B-1-R)
0.00498 (RC-1-b) 0.00451 (RC-1-b) 0.00458 (RC-1-b) 0.00200 (RC-1-b)
0.00493 (LC-1-b) 0.00441 (LC-1-b) 0.00448 (LC-1-b) 0.00182 (LC-1-b)
0.00126 (B-1-L) 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
5-story 0.01500 (B-2-L) 0.01387 (B-2-R) 0.01391 (B-2-R) 0.01467 (B-3-R)
0.01233 (B-3-R) 0.01191 (B-1-R) 0.01172 (B-1-R) 0.01364 (B-4-R)
0.01216 (B-4-R) 0.01063 (B-3-R) 0.01146 (B-3-R) 0.01348 (B-2-R)
0.01184 (B-1-L) 0.00480 (B-3-R) 0.00660 (B-3-R) 0.00742 (B-1-R)
0.01114 (B-3-L) 0.00267 (RC-1-b) 0.00255 (B-3-L) 0.00434 (B-5-R)
10-story 0.01483 (B-6-R) 0.01419 (B-4-R) 0.01312 (B-4-R) 0.01747 (B-6-R)
0.01418 (B-5-R) 0.01285 (B-3-R) 0.01182 (B-3-R) 0.01656 (B-7-R)
0.01376 (B-4-R) 0.01213 (B-5-R) 0.01135 (B-5-R) 0.01376 (B-8-R)
0.01239 (B-7-R) 0.01023 (B-2-R) 0.00949 (B-2-R) 0.01366 (B-5-R)
0.01108 (B-3-R) 0.00954 (B-6-R) 0.00916 (B-6-R) 0.00946 (B-4-R)
20-story 0.01500 (B-14-R) 0.00145 (B-4-R) 0.00091 (B-4-R) 0.01696 (B-15-R)
0.01442 (B-13-R) 0.00140 (B-5-R) 0.00072 (B-5-R) 0.01680 (B-16-R)
0.01417 (B-15-R) 0.00129 (B-11-R) 0.00050 (B-3-R) 0.01422 (B-14-R)
0.01355 (B-16-R) 0.00120 (B-9-R) 0.00018 (B-6-R) 0.01350 (B-17-R)
0.01150 (B-17-R) 0.00112 (B-10-R) 0.00014 (B-9-R) 0.01099 (B-13-R)
30-story 0.01500 (B-24-R) 0.00000 0.00000 0.01563 (B-24-R)
0.01465 (B-25-R) 0.00000 0.00000 0.01553 (B-25-R)
0.01395 (B-23-R) 0.00000 0.00000 0.01441 (B-23-R)
0.01181 (B-26-R) 0.00000 0.00000 0.01326 (B-26-R)
0.01025 (B-22-R) 0.00000 0.00000 0.01035 (B-22-R)

a
The letters in parentheses are: B: Beam, C: Column, R: Right, L: Left, b: bottom, t: top, and the middle number represents the story of the
building where the plastic hinge rotation takes place.
 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128
Fig. 8. Force–deformation characteristics of MDOF structure and the
equivalent SDOF system.
4. Compute the maximum inelastic displacement u∗m of
the equivalent SDOF system according to the known
ground acceleration ẍg(t), and transform um∗ into the
target displacement ur,TLP of the MDOF structure. The
transformation formula is as follows:
fTm1 ∗
ur,TLP ⫽ T u
f mf m
In order to obtain a satisfactory ur,TLP and its associa-
ted mode shape f, iteration of step 2 to 4 is required.
Initially, we can assume a linear shape vector (f)1, that
is the same as the load pattern, to compute the target
displacement (ur,TLP)1, and a new shape vector (f)2 by
normalizing the displacement profile of the structure cor-
responding to the target displacement (ur,TLP)1. Then, use
the shape vector (f)2 to compute a new target displace-
ment (ur,TLP)2. Repeat the above procedure until the tar-
get displacement is converged.
Appendix B. : Configurations of steel frames
Five different single-bay buildings of 2, 5, 10, 20 and
30 stories are designed in order to cover a broad range
125
for the fundamental periods. It is assumed that the earth-
quake movements would be aligned in the direction of
the strong-axis of the columns. All buildings are 7 × 7 m
in the horizontal plan, with 4 m heights for the first story,
and 3.2 m for others. The seismic mass at the top level
is 1784 kg, and 2354 kg for others. The structural sys-
tems are composed of Special Moment Resisting Frames
(SMRF). All buildings are designed to satisfy the opti-
mal sections and the strong column-weak beam philo-
sophy. Table 3 presents the details of, and first three
vibration periods for, various frames.
Appendix C. : Earth tremors
Table 4 shows the 13 earth tremor records, which
were chosen from the Chi-Chi Earthquake in Taiwan,
and their elastic response spectra are shown in Fig. 9.
The paper makes references to these earth tremors using
the Record Name.
Appendix D: Response analyses of linear systems
[5, ch. 13]
Response history analysis
The differential Eq. (1) governing the response of an
MDOF system to earthquake-induced ground motion is
repeated:
mü ⫹ cu̇ ⫹ ku ⫽ ⫺m␫üg(t) (D.1)
The displacement u of an N-DOF system can be
expressed as a superposition of the modal contributions:
冘
N
(A.4) u(t) ⫽ fnqn(t) (D.2)
n⫽1
where the modal co-ordinate qn(t) is governed by
q̈n ⫹ 2znwnq̇n ⫹ w2nqn ⫽ ⫺⌫nüg(t) (D.3)
in which wn, zn and ⌫n are the natural vibration fre-
quency, damping ratio and modal participation factor of
the nth mode. And
fTnm␫
⌫n ⫽
fTnmfn
is the solution of qn in Eq. (D.3) is given by
qn(t) ⫽ ⌫nDn(t) (D.4)
where Dn(t) is governed by the equation of motion for
a SDOF system, with natural frequency wn and damping
ratio zn, subjected to üg(t):
D̈n ⫹ 2znwnḊn ⫹ w2nDn ⫽ ⫺üg(t) (D.5)
126 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128

Table 3 Table 4
Member details and first three vibration periods for various frames Chi-Chi earthquake records used in this paper

2-storey Column Beam 20-story Column Beam Station PGA (cm/s/s) Station PGA (cm/s/s)

2 W12×22 W12×16 20 W14×22 W12×19 TCU051(S85W) ⫺164.12 TCU065(S57E) 759.95

1 W14×34 W12×22 19 W14×26 W14×22 TCU053(S62E) ⫺215.63 TCU067(S63E) ⫺554.94
5-story 18 W14×30 W14×30 TCU089(N88W) 342.58 TCU068(N43W) ⫺457.74
5 W14×26 W12×19 17 W14×34 W14×30 TCU049(S59E) ⫺240.41 TCU075(S87E) ⫺323.68
4 W14×30 W12×22 16 W14×38 W14×34 CHY029 (S19E) 253.71 TCU076 (S44E) ⫺414.79
3 W14×34 W14×26 15 W14×43 W14×38 CHY046 (N41W) ⫺159.04 TCU102 (S51W) 252.57
2 W14×38 W14×26 14 W14×48 W14×43 TCU052 (N37W) 499.81
1 W14×43 W14×26 13 W14×53 W14×43
10-story 12 W14×61 W14×48
10 W14×26 W14×19 11 W14×68 W14×48
9 W14×30 W14×22 10 W14×74 W14×53
8 W14×34 W14×26 9 W14×82 W14×53
7 W14×38 W14×30 8 W14×90 W14×61
6 W14×43 W14×30 7 W14×99 W14×61
5 W14×48 W14×34 6 W14×109 W14×61
4 W14×53 W14×34 5 W14×120 W14×61
3 W14×61 W14×38 4 W14×132 W14×61
2 W14×68 W14×38 3 W14×145 W14×61
1 W14×74 W14×38 2 W14×159 W14×61
1 W14×176 W14×61
30-story
30 W14×26 W12×19
29 W14×30 W14×26
28 W14×34 W14×30
27 W14×38 W14×34
26 W14×43 W14×38
25 W14×48 W14×43
24 W14×53 W14×48
23 W14×61 W14×48
22 W14×68 W14×53
21 W14×74 W14×61
20 W14×82 W14×61
19 W14×90 W14×61
18 W14×109 W14×68
17 W14×109 W14×68
16 W14×132 W14×68
15 W14×132 W14×68
14 W14×159 W14×74
13 W14×159 W14×74
12 W14×193 W14×82
11 W14×193 W14×82
10 W14×233 W14×82
9 W14×233 W14×82 Fig. 9. Normalized pseudo-acceleration response spectra (5%
8 W14×257 W14×90 damped).
7 W14×257 W14×90
6 W14×283 W14×90
5 W14×283 W14×90 Substituting Eq. (D.4) into Eq. (D.2) gives the floor dis-
4 W14×311 W14×90 placements
3 W14×311 W14×90

冘
2 W14×342 W14×74 N
1 W14×342 W14×61 u(t) ⫽ ⌫nfnDn(t) (D.6)
Frame T1 (s) T2 (s) T3 (s) n⫽1
30-story 4.393 1.594 0.916
20-story 3.425 1.238 0.712 Making use of Eq. (D.2) and the relation of kfn =
10-story 2.077 0.717 0.403 w2nmfn, the equivalent static forces fs(t) = ku(t) can be
5-story 1.216 0.395 0.199 expressed as
2-story 0.559 0.162

冘
N

fs(t) ⫽ w2nmfnqn(t) (D.7)

n⫽1

and at any instant of time t, these forces fs are the exter-

 T.S. Jan et al. / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 117–128 127

nal forces that produce the displacements u at the same get displacement is reached. Both the force distribution
t, in the stiffness component of the structure. and target displacement are based on the assumption that
The roof displacement ur(t) of u(t) can be expressed the response is controlled by the fundamental mode and
in the following form: that the mode shape remains unchanged after the struc-

冉 冘 冊
ture yields.
冘
N N
jrnqn(t) In Section 2, the conclusion is that the first two modes
ur(t) ⫽ jrnqn(t) ⫽ ur1(t)· 1 ⫹ (D.8)
n⫽1
j q (t)
n ⫽ 2 r1 1
provide a reasonably accurate prediction for the elastic
displacement response of structures to earthquakes, and
where ur1(t) = fr1 q 1(t), representing the roof displace- the third or higher mode can be ignored. Similar con-
ment due to the first mode. If fn is normalized such that clusions can also be found in reference [5, ch.18]. Thus,
the degree of freedom of the roof frn = 1, then Eq. (D.8) if we assume that the displacement response is mainly
can be simplified as controlled by the first two modes, Eqs. (D.11)–(D.13)

冉 冘 冊 N can be reduced to
qn(t)
ur(t) ⫽ ur1(t)· 1 ⫹ (D.9)
⌫2D2

where
q (t)
n⫽2 1
q2
q1
⫽
| |
⌫1D1
(E.1)

冘 冘
⌫nDn(t)
N N
qn(t)
⫽ (D.10)
q (t) ⌫ D (t) q2
n⫽2 1 n⫽2 1 1 fs ⫽ q1(w21mf1 ⫹ w22mf2 ) (E.2)
q1
which is a summation of the displacement–response con-
tribution ratio of all higher modes to that of the funda-
mental mode.
q2
ur ⫽ ur1(1 ⫹ ) (E.3)
Response spectrum analysis q1
Since fs is a spatial vector and increases monotonically
In structural design applications, the peak response of from zero, Eq. (E.2) can be simply expressed as
a MDOF system is determined by the response spectrum
for a specific ground motion without carrying out a q2
fs ⫽ w21mf1 ⫹ w22mf2 (E.4)
response history analysis. If one chooses the absolute q1
sum (ABSSUM) modal combination rule to determine
the peak response, Eqs. (D.10), (D.7) and (D.9) become In Eq. (E.3), if ur1 reaches ur,TLP—the target roof dis-
placement contributed by only the 1st mode, ur will

冘 冘| |
⌫nDn
N N reach ur,UB—the target roof displacement contributed by
qn
⫽ (D.11) both the 1st and 2nd modes, as long as the deflected
q
n⫽2 1
⌫D
n⫽2 1 1 shape remains unchanged after the structure yields. Eq.

冘
N (E.3) can therefore be expressed as
fs ⫽ w2nmfnqn (D.12) q2
n⫽1 ur,UB ⫽ ur,TLP(1 ⫹ ) (E.5)
q1
ur ⫽ ur1 1 ⫹冉 冘 冊 q
N
qn
n⫽2 1
(D.13)

References
In Eq. (D.11), qn = |⌫nDn| and Dn ⬅ D(Tn, zn)—the
deformation response spectrum ordinate corresponding
to the natural period Tn and damping ratio zn (n = 1,
2,..., N). In Eq. (D.13), ur1 is the roof displacement con-
tributed by the 1st mode.
Appendix E. : Explanation of Eqs. (4) ad (5)
In the pushover analysis of FEMA-273, the non-linear
static analysis is performed under the condition that the
spatial distribution of the lateral forces to the structure
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