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Time History Analysis LIST OF CONTENT

with SAP2000  Download recorded accelerograms from the
PEER database.
 Upload a selected accelerogram to SAP2000.
A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR FAMILIARIZING  Run the time-history analysis and display the
WITH THIS PIECE OF SOFTWARE results

D r. E n g . A c h fa s Za c o e b
D ept . of C i vi l E n gi n eer i n g
B r aw i j aya U n i ver si t y

Step #1
PEER STRONG GROUND MOTION DATABASE
DOWNLOAD ACCELEROGRAMS FROM THE PEER DATABASE
PEER STRONG GROUND MOTION DATABASE  The database in entirely searchable

 The Pacific Earthquake Engineering

http://peer.berkeley.edu/nga/
Research (PEER), headquartered at
the University of California at
Berkeley, makes available online  As an example, we want to download the
over 10,000 strong ground motion accelerogram recorded during the Imperial Valley
records from 173 different 1940 earthquake
earthquakes  Once the event has been selected in the top drop-
down list, we must specify to DISPLAY the
 http://peer.berkeley.edu/ results “In Table” rather than “On Map”
 Then we can SEARCH

FIND THE ACCELEROGRAM

By right-clicking on the appropriate record (NGA0006
in our case), a new page is shown with all the relevant
pieces of information about this seismic event
 If we scroll down, the links to the three
components of the accelerogram (180°, 270° and
vertical) appear

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DOWNLOAD THE TIME HISTORY OF THE GROUND ACCELERATION

By right-clicking on one
of these links (e.g. the
first horizontal
component, denote with
IMPVALL/I-ELC180), a
new textual page is
opened with the
corresponding time
history of the ground
acceleration

DOWNLOAD THE TIME HISTORY OF THE GROUND ACCELERATION DOWNLOAD THE TIME HISTORY OF THE GROUND ACCELERATION

The other lines list the ordinates of the record (in units of
g), which must be read from left to right, row by row
The first four lines contain general pieces of
information about the record, namely:
 Location: “Imperial Valley”
 Date: 19th May 1940
 Time: 4:39am
 Station: “El Centro Array #9”
 Direction: Horizontal, 180°
 Units of acceleration: g= 9.81 m/s2 (acceleration of
gravity)
 Number of time instants: 4,000
 Sampling time: Δt= 0.01 s (f= 100 Hz)

DOWNLOAD THE TIME HISTORY OF THE GROUND ACCELERATION Step #2

UPLOAD ACCELEROGRAMS TO SAP2000
Importantly, the web DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000
browser (Explorer,
Firefox and etc.)  An accelerogram is basically the time-history of the
allows to save this acceleration experienced by the ground in a given
page as a TXT file direction during a seismic event.
(you may need to  We need to input the accelerogram as a generic
manually change the function defined in SAP2000 starting from a TXT
extension) file.
 Once the mechanical model of the structural system
under investigation has been created, SELECT from
the menu bar: DEFINE → FUNCTIONS → TIME
HISTORIES...

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DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000 DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000

The accelerogram must

be uploaded to SAP2000
as FUNCTION FROM
FILE, an option which
can be selected from the
drop-down list

DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000 DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000

We can select: By clicking on

 Name of the function DISPLAY GRAPH
(e.g. we can visually check
EL_CENTRO_1940) the waveform
 Location of the file by
using the button
BROWSE...
 Number of lines to
skip (4 for the PEER
database)
 Number of points per
line (5 for the PEER
database)

DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000

DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000

 In order to be used in a seismic simulation, the

waveform previously defined must be properly
assigned to an ANALYSIS CASE

 To do this, SELECT from the menu bar: DEFINE →

ANALYSIS CASES...

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DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000 DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000

 The appropriate analysis in presence of
 The analysis case in presence of accelerogram is a
TIME HISTORY, which can be selected from a drop- accelerograms is a TIME HISTORY case, which
down list after clicking on the ADD NEW CASE... can be selected from the drop-down list
button

DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000 DEFINE THE ACCELEROGRAM IN SAP2000

This leads to a In particular:

more complicated  The load type is an ACCELeration of the ground
windows, in (first drop-down list)
which few
parameters must  For a planar model, the ground shaking is generally
be input assumed to happen in the X direction, i.e. Load name
U1 (seconddrop-down list)
 The records from the PEER website are given in
units of g, so the scale factor would be 9.81 m/s2 or
981 cm/s2, depending on the units selected in the
model of SAP2000
 The number of time steps should be given by the
duration of the accelerogram divided by the sampling
time:
 In our example: 40 s / 0.01 s = 4,000 steps

Step #3
RUN THE DYNAMIC ANALYSIS
RUN THE ANALYSIS AND DISPLAY THE RESULTS
 Once the accelerogram has been defined in SAP2000,
it is possible to run the time-history analysis as any
other type of analysis.

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DISPLAY THE RESULTS

RUN THE DYNAMIC ANALYSIS
 Once the analyses are complete, you can read the
pertinent results from tables and diagrams
 In the next slides the results of the dynamic analysis
are shown in terms of:
 Axial Force N (left-had side graph)
 Bending Moment M (right-hand side graph)

 It is worth mentioning that these blue diagrams are

the ENVELOPE of the corresponding outputs:
 Indeed, in a dynamic analysis we have a value of
the structural quantities of interest (e.g. N and M)
for each time steps
 As engineers, we are generally interested in both
minimum and maximum value, i.e. by the
“envelope” of these responses

DISPLAY THE RESULTS

DISPLAY THE RESULTS

 We can also display the same structural quantities

in a specific time instant, e.g. at t = 10 s.
 In this case, for instance, the red colour in the
axial-force diagram means compression, while the
yellow colour stands for tension.

DISPLAY THE RESULTS DISPLAY THE RESULTS

 In order to show the time history of a given

structural response, e.g. The horizontal displacement
of the top floor, you must SELECT from the menu
bar: DISPLAY → SHOW PLOT FUNCTIONS…

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DISPLAY THE RESULTS DISPLAY THE RESULTS

In our example, we
want to display the
displacement along
the X direction of the
joint no. 23, for the
time range from 0 to
40 s.

DISPLAY THE RESULTS

In the window with the graph, min and max values of
the selected time history are also reported.

Thanks for Your Attention

and
Success for Your Study!