CRITICAL REVIEW OF BASIC PUSHOVER METHODS IN

EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN STANDARDS BASED ON

PERFORMANCE OF IS CODE BUILDINGS IN HIGH
SEISMICITY

Manjula N.K.
Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, NIT Calicut, India

T.M. Madhavan Pillai
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, NIT Calicut, India

Praveen Nagarajan
Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, NIT Calicut, India


Abstract
Building design practices considering seismic requirements are in a phase of renovation today,
regarding many factors, and the most important among them can be considered as the choice between
strength based or displacement based design methodologies. The former, which is easier and used in
the building codes, are considered to be insufficient to determine the performance of a structure under
seismic loads, as it is uneconomical to design buildings to remain elastic or with uncertain inelasticity
during earthquakes. This work aims to compare the Nonlinear static analysis procedures (NSPs) for
seismic analysis in the international standards, considering two RC buildings designed as per latest IS
provisions. One of them is a six storeyed frame structure in Indian seismic zone III and the other one
is a four storeyed frame structure in Indian seismic zone IV.
Keywords : Elastic, Higher level seismicity, Nonlinear, Performance based, Pushover, Strength
based.
1 Introduction
Earthquake responses of buildings are one of today's major design considerations, which in current
practices are being analysed through different procedures in static and dynamic analysis domains.
The nonlinear static (pushover) procedures (NSPs)[1], which are being widely used by the
professional building designers due to their simple application methods, have undergone many
reviews and improvements in the past two decades. Such methods[2],[3],[4],[5], due to their clarity in
application procedures compared to their many improved versions which include higher mode and
irregularity effects[6], are being widely used in seismic analysis for design and retrofit.
The nonlinear procedures for analysing the time varying seismic responses in a static domain
can be broadly classified in to two: Secant stiffness based and Initial stiffness based.
The secant method (COLA 1995)[7] and the Capacity Spectrum Method ( CSM- ATC 40 -
1996) and its improved version, The equivalent Linearization Method (ELM- FEMA 440- 2005) are
some of the performance assessment procedures in the first method. The former one is the more
detailed and cumbersome method resorting to a member by member application, and hence not much
popular, and is not used in this study.
The Displacement Coefficient Method (DCM- FEMA 356, 2000) and its improved version
The Displacement Modification Method (DMM - FEMA 440, 2005) and the N2 Method (Eurocode 8-
2004) are some of the most popular NSPs in the second category.
This study aims to compare and identify the differences in the application procedures of the
different pushover methods and understand the structural behaviour of latest IS[8] code buildings
during an earthquake event of its designed capacity and that of a higher capacity than its design.
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6
S
p
e
c
t
r
a
l

A
c
c
e
l
e
r
a
t
i
o
n

-

g

Spectral Displacement (m)
CAPACITY
SPECTRUM
DEMAND-
MCE
DEMAND - 2
MCE
DEMAND -
2/3 MCE
DEMAND =
0.5 MCE
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3
S
p
e
c
t
r
a
l

A
c
c
e
l
e
r
a
t
i
o
n

-
g

Spectral displacement (m)
demand- 2mce
capacity spectrum
demand mce
demand-2/3 mce
demand-1/2mce
0
200
400
600
800
1000
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
B
a
s
e

s
h
e
a
r

(
K
N
)

Roof Displacement (m)
capacity
curve
F* vs d*
dm* dy*
Fy*
Results of pushover methods are compared with results of ASCE[9] scaled ground motions. The
performance of the buildings are compared for their Maximum considered earthquake (MCE), Design
basis earthquake (DBE) for two situations, i.e.as per Indian Standard[8] DBE of half of MCE and as
per ASCE[9] guidelines which uses 2/3 of MCE, and a higher level seismicity of two times the MCE.
The later one is done to identify the behaviour of strength based and ductilely detailed buildings
during earthquakes which are stronger than the seismic levels generally expected in the building site.
2 Design and modelling details of the considered Buildings
The buildings were designed according to the latest Indian standards, and wherever improvements are
available in the form of proposed drafts, like the strong column- weak beam philosophy and the
live load reductions, they are used for
design. The IITK- GSDMA drafts[10] are
used for this purpose. SAP 2000[11] is used
for all analyses. The six storeyed (6S)
reinforced concrete 2D frame with loadings
is selected for analysis, from the 3D
building in the IITK - GSDMA project on
building codes[12]. The building is
designed with an importance factor of 1.5
representing public building. The four
storeyed (4S) building geometry and
loading are taken from the text book
Earthquake resistant design of
structures[13]. The building is designed with an importance factor 1 and for a seismic zone of IV.
3 Results and discussions
Fig. 2 (a) ELM results of 6S frame (b) ELM results of 4S frame (c) N2 result of 6S frame
1. The study shows that code based buildings are uneconomical for their DBE but their
performance in MCE is satisfactory for sufficiently detailed buildings.
2. The strong column - weak beam strategy adopted in latest draft provisions of IS code
specifies that moment capacities should be such that
1.1 M
u
,
b
M
u
,
c

where M
u
,
b
represents the sum of design moments for beams and M
u
,
c
represents that for
columns at a joint.
The failure pattern obtained from POA shows column hinge formation at top and bottom
storeys. But the dynamic analysis failure pattern shows hinges at many other storeys in
columns. Two points can be inferred from this result.
i. The strong column - weak beam philosophy in latest IS provisions (drafts) is
insufficient to account for higher level seismicity. Also buildings designed without
using this strategy, i.e., those which are implementing only the current code, are at
higher risks. As the seismic zones in India are redefined during recent code revisions,
certain places were assigned higher seismic risks than given in previous code.
Buildings at such places designed as per older codes hence require re analysis for
ensuring safety.
ii. For strength based buildings, nonlinear static analysis is not suited for analysing
safety against earthquakes having very large magnitudes compared to their design
earthquake.
3. It can be seen that the N2 method, in these analyses, slightly overestimates the results
compared to the other pushover methods. This is due to the elasto- perfectly plastic bi-
linearization adopted in the NSP which assumes that the yield force is equal to the base shear
at the target displacement.
Table 1
Results of static and dynamic analysis procedures - 6S frame
Earthquake
magnitude
Parameter
analysed
ATC 40
1996
ELM
FEMA 440
2005
DCM
FEMA356/440
2000, 2005
N2
Eurocode-
8 : 2004
Nonlinear
Time history
average
2 MCE
V
B
kN 773.11 783.053 791.62 800 796.82

t
m 0.332 0.344 0.356 0.372 0.339
MCE
V
B
kN 451.34 451.34 448 523.11

t
m 0.181 0.181 0.18 0.185
2/3 MCE
V
B
kN 301 301 299

t
m 0.121 0.121 0.12
1/2 MCE
V
B
kN 226 226 226

t
m 0.09 0.09 0.09
Table 2
Results of static and dynamic analysis procedures -4S frame
Earthquake
magnitude
Parameter
analysed
ATC 40
1996
ELM
FEMA 440
2005
DCM
FEMA356/440
2000, 2005
N2
Eurocode-
8 : 2004
Nonlinear
Time history
average
2 MCE
V
B
kN 375.37 374.83 374.2 / 375.12 376 Complete
collapse
t
m 0.179 0.172 0.164 / 0.176 0.18
MCE
V
B
kN 358.88 360.85 365.27 / 366.36 337.4

t
m 0.072 0.075 0.084 / 0.086 0.077
2/3 MCE
V
B
kN 331.06 338.103 343.423

t
m 0.052 0.055 0.058
1/2 MCE
V
B
kN 289.48 295.86 298.34

t
m 0.041 0.043 0.043
References
1. Helmut Krawinkler, G.D.P.K. Seneviratna (1998), Pros and cons of a pushover analysis of
seismic performance evaluation, Engineering Structures, Vol. 20, Nos 4-6, pp 452- 464.
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Technology Council, California.
3. FEMA 356(2000), Prestandard and commentary for the seismic rehabilitation of buildings,
Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington D.C.
4. FEMA 440 (2005), Improvement of nonlinear static seismic analysis procedures, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, Washington D.C.
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capacity spectrum method, Engineering Structures,30, pp.3345-3354.
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1994 Uniform building code.
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Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi.
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V4.0 and Proposed draft provisions and commentary on Indian seismic code IS 1893 (part1),
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structures International, California.
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IITK- GSDMA- EQ 26- V3.0
13. Pankaj Agrawal, Manish Shrikhande (2006), Earthquake resistant design of structures, PHI
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