The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Dimensional analysis of inelastic structures subjected to near fault ground motions

Makris, Nicos; Black, Cameron J.

UCB/EERC-2003/05, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 2003, 96 pages (400/E177/2003-05)

The nonlinear response of rigid-plastic, elastoplastic, and bilinear systems is presented in terms of the dimensionless pi-products resulting from rigorous dimensional analysis. Building on this analysis, the research shows that both linear and nonlinear structural responses from a variety of records which exhibit distinguishable pulses scale better with the peak pulse acceleration than with peak pulse velocity, indicating that the peak pulse acceleration is a more representative intensity measure of the earthquake shaking.

Available online: http://eerc.berkeley.edu/reports/2003/eerc%5F2003%5F05.pdf