Abstract
Traditional seismic load resisting systems in buildings are designed to undergo inelastic deformations in order to dissipate energy, resulting in residual displacements. This work explores an approach to eliminate these residual displacements. The systems investigated have low initial stiffness which increases at a predefined displacement, and are therefore called stiffening elastic systems. This thesis begins with an examination of single-degree-of-freedom stiffening elastic systems. A case study is presented which suggests that the benefits from stiffening elastic behavior may be limited to systems which would have long periods if designed traditionally. A thorough parameter study is also presented which indicates the benefit of stiffening elastic behavior for SDOF systems with periods greater than four seconds. A final case study is presented that compares the response of a twelve-story stiffening elastic system to a ductile system and an elastic system. The stiffening elastic system was able to eliminate the residual displacements inherent in a ductile system while lowering the base shear experienced by the elastic system, but is not clearly better than the ductile system because the base shear force was much higher.
Degree
MS
College and Department
Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology; Civil and Environmental Engineering
Rights
http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Morgan, Andrew Scott, "Seismic Response of Stiffening Elastic Systems" (2012). Theses and Dissertations. 3491.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3491
Date Submitted
2012-12-04
Document Type
Thesis
Handle
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd5741
Keywords
earthquake engineering, response history analysis, performance based design
Language
English