Model studies of the vibrations of structures during earthquakes, based on ground accelerations instead of on ground displacements

Abstract

One of the most important problems in the field of earthquake engineering deals with the dynamics of structures. Any building is an elastic system. As such, its deflections (stresses) during an earthquake may depend on its own dynamical characteristics as well as on the nature of the ground motion. An ordinary building is a relatively complicated dynamic system, usually of many degrees of freedom and with considerable internal friction. The treatment of this problem may be simplified by the assumption that this internal friction is equivalent to viscous damping. A further simplification results from first treating systems of one degree of freedom, combining these results if the behavior of a more complicated system is desired.