The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Sensitivity analysis for hysteretic dynamic systems: theory and applications

Ray, Debabrata; Pister, Karl S.; Polak, Elijah L.

UCB/EERC-76/12, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1976-02, 61 pages (530/R29/1976)

Sensitivity analysis, calculation of the rate of change of response variables with respect to design variables, is a critical component in the process of reanalysis for improvement of trial designs or in seeking an optimum design. This report presents necessary theorems and provides details for numerical computation of sensitivity matrices for spatially discretized structural systems subjected to dynamic excitation. General results are presented for nonlinear (hysteretic) structures and explicit numerical examples illustrate the methodology applied to multistory shear frames whose force-displacement relationship is bilinear hysteretic.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-76-12.pdf (2 MB)