Assignment #4

Method of Finite Elements II

M2=15tn
M2

M1=10tn
M1

Fig. 1: Two floor shear-frame structure with a Bouc-Wen type material nonlinearity
A two story shear-frame structure is depicted in Fig. 1. The structure comprises steel columns
(S235) of a square section of 30cm edge and 5m height each. The beams are considered as very
stiff, whereas the floor mass is defined as illustrated in the figure. It is straightforward to calculate
an equivalent 2-dof spring-dashpot system that corresponds to this structure.

1) Calculate the systems Mass (M) and Stiffness (K) matrices. Next, calculate the natural
frequencies and plot the modal shapes for the structure of Fig. 1.

2) Assume a modal damping of 2% for each one of the two modes. Calculate the equivalent
Rayleigh damping coefficients a,b based on which you may derive the systems damping
matrix as: C=aM+bK.
3) Assume an earthquake excitation is acting on the base of this building, defined by the
elcentro_H.txt, where the first column of the file corresponds to time, whereas the second
to the acceleration in g. Simulate the buildings elastic response using a direct stiffness
method. Use the MATLAB files that are available on the class website and modify them
accordingly to perform this simulation. Plot the displacement and acceleration time
histories of the two stories.

4) Analyze the same structure using SAP2000. You may refer to the relevant demo that is
available on the class website and modify it accordingly for performing the analysis. For
the moment, disregard the strength for the system by performing an elastic time-history
analysis. Compare the floor displacement results of the SAP analysis to the ones of your
MATLAB program.

5) Now, take the strength of the material into account. Do so by using the strength properties
of a steel class S235 and perform a nonlinear time-history analysis. To do this, you need to
assign hinges in the locations where you expect plasticization (as in the demo of lecture
10). Select Deformation Controlled, Moment M3, and a kinematic hardening model for
the definition of the hinge properties. Check if for this level of load, you have nonlinearity
occurring. You can do this from the deformed plots where the activation of hinges (or not)
is apparent for different time instants of the analysis. If no plasticization occurred for this
level of load, increase the load until you obtain nonlinear response. Provide the bottom
shear versus 1st storey displacement plots for the load you have chosen and describe the
time instances where you have a plastic hinge occurring.

6) Returning to your MATLAB script, try to approximate the bottom shear versus 1st storey
displacement plot by adding a hysteretic spring (and an additional parameter z) on the 1st
floor stiffness. Use a state-space formulation for the 2dof system, via the procedure
demonstrated in class and solve the resulting nonlinear system of equations using
MATLABs ode45 solver (use the files uploaded on the website as reference). Calibrate
the Bouc Wen model parameters (, and n) so as to approximate the curve produced by
SAP. Then, add stiffness degradation and strength deterioration effects at various levels
and provide plots of the different response curves.