The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

DRAIN-TABS: a computer program for inelastic earthquake response of three-dimensional buildings

Guendelman-Israel, Rafael; Powell, Graham H.

UCB/EERC-77/08, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1977-03, 146 pages (555.6/G8/1977)

A computational procedure and computer program for the inelastic dynamic response analysis of three-dimensional buildings of essentially arbitrary configurations are described. A building is idealized as a series of independent plane substructures interconnected by horizontal rigid diaphragms. Each substructure can be of arbitrary geometry and include structural elements of a variety of types. It is not necessary for all substructures to connect to all diaphragms so that structures with independent diaphragms at some levels can be idealized (as, for example, two towers connected only at the top floors). The analysis makes use of substructuring techniques to improve computational efficiency. The major limitation is that the coupling of the substructures through common columns is not fully taken into account so that the idealization is not suitable for tube-type buildings. The program consists of a base program which reads and prints data for the structure and its loading, allocates storage, carries out a variety of bookkeeping operations, assembles the substructure and building stiffnesses and loadings, solves the equilibrium equations, and determines the displacement response. This base program is then combined with a library of element subroutines to produce the complete program. Subroutines for new elements can be developed independently and added to the element library with relative ease. Subroutines for truss, beam column, shear panel, semirigid connection, and beam elements are currently included. The structure idealization is explained, and the computational procedure and computer program logic are described. Instructions to be followed when adding new elements to the program are presented. A computer program user's guide and an illustrative example are included.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-77-08.pdf (6 MB)