Evaluation of dynamic eccentricities obtained using a probabilistic approach,response spectrum methods and modern building codes

In this paper a probabilistic approach has been adopted to study both the effects of uncertainty in earthquake frequency content and the correlation between earthquake frequency content and ground motion intensity on the response of a single-storey torsionally coupled elastic structure. The earthquake ground motion has been assumed to be a Gaussian, zero mean, stationary random process which is fully characterized by a power spectrum. The ground acceleration power spectrum is idealized as a probabilistic normalized power spectrum computed from actual earthquake records. The advantage of such an idealization is that it enables the effect of the natural frequency as a controlling structural parameter in torsional coupling to be assessed. Comparisons of the dynamic amplifications of eccentricity with those obtained from modern codes of practice and conventional response spectrum analyses have been made. The results of this study have shown that the variation in the frequency content has a significant effect on the response of low frequency structures, while the correlation between the frequency content and the intensity of seismic ground motion is insignificant for the wide range of structures considered. The structure natural frequency has been shown to be an important controlling parameter in the torsionally coupled response of structures subject to seismic loading. The frequency dependence of the dynamic amplification of eccentricity was found not to be reflected in the response spectrum analysis and the torsional provisions of modern building codes.