The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

The Dynamic Behavior of Steel Frame and Truss Buildings

Rea, Dixon; Bouwkamp, Jack G.; Clough, Ray W.

UCB/SESM-1966/24, Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 1966-09-01, 185 pages (545.1/R35/1966)

This report describes experimental and analytical studies of the dynamic behavior of the East Building of the University of California's Medical Center in San Francisco, California. The building is a fifteen story, moment resistant steel frame and its service and elevator towers are constructured of vertical steel trusses stiffened by encasing them entirely in concrete. Experimental tests using an eccentric-mass type vibration generator for observing frequency response, time-responses, and mode shapes, were conducted on the East Building's mechanical service tower and on an adjacent elevator tower during construction of the building in 1964-65. An analytical model of the building was subjected to El Centro earthquake ground accelerations.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/SEMM/SEMM-66-24.pdf (14 MB)