ISSN 2348-5426

International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology (IJAST)

Pushover Analysis of Existing 3 Stories RC Flat slab Building

M. A. Ismaeil
Ph.D Candidate, Cairo University, Egypt.

ABSTRACT - A three-stories hospital existing reinforced

concrete building in the city of Khartoum-Sudan, subjected
to seismic loads ,was analysed .The Sudan is not free from
earthquakes , it has experienced many earthquakes during
the recent history, and the previous studies on this field
demonstrated this argument. This paper is focused on the
study of seismic performance of the existing hospital
buildings in the Sudan. Plastic hinge is used to represent
the failure mode in the beams and columns when the
member yields. The pushover analysis was performed on
the building using SAP2000 software (Ver.14) [1] and
equivalent static method according to UBC 97 [2]. The
principles of Performance Based Seismic Engineering are
used to govern the analysis, where inelastic structural
analysis is combined with the seismic hazard to calculate
expected seismic performance of a structure. Base shear
versus tip displacement curve of the structure, called
pushover curve, is an essential outcomes of pushover
analysis. The pushover analysis is carried out in both X and
Y directions. Default hinge properties, available in some
programs based on the FEMA -356 [3] and Applied
Technology Council (ATC-40) [4] guidelines are used for
each member. One case study has been chosen for this
purpose. The evaluation has proved that the three stories
hospital building is seismically safe.
Keywords Pushover analysis; Reinforced concrete ;
Seismic performance ; ATC-40 ; FEMA -356.
I.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of pushover analysis is to evaluate the expected

performance of structural systems by estimating its strength and
deformation demands in design earthquakes by means of
static inelastic analysis, and comparing these demands to
available capacities at the performance levels of interest. The
equivalent static lateral loads approximately represent
earthquake induced forces. A plot of the total base shear
versus top displacement in a structure is obtained by this
analysis that would indicate any premature failure or
weakness. Many researchers have conducted studies in this
area such as: N. Jitendra BABU et al., (2012) [5] presented a
research paper on "Pushover Analysis of Unsymmetrical
Framed Structures on Sloping Ground". The paper deals with
non-linear analysis of various symmetric and asymmetric
structures constructed on plain as well as sloping grounds
(30 slope) subjected to various kinds of loads .The analysis
has been carried out using SAP2000 and ETABS software.

The paper concluded that the structure with vertical

irregularity is more critical than a structure with plan
irregularity. For the increase of seismic zoning factor over
many parts of Indian continent and based on FEMA-356 and
ATC-40 guidelines.
Kavita Golghate et.al. (2013) [6] carried out "a Pushover
Analysis of a 3 Storey's Reinforced Concrete Building" aiming
to evaluate the zone-IV selected reinforced concrete building to
conduct non-linear static analysis (pushover analysis) using
SAP 2000.The study showed that hinges have developed in the
beams and columns showing the three stages immediate
occupancy, life safety and collapse prevention.
Rahul RANA et.al. (2004) [7] performed a pushover
analysis on a 19 story, slender concrete tower building located
in San Francisco with a gross area of 430000 square feet. The
lateral system of this building consists of concrete shear walls
and it was designed conforming to 1997 Uniform Building
Code (UBC), and pushover analysis was performed to verify
code's underlying intent of Life Safety performance under
design earthquake. Utilizing the results from the analysis, some
modifications were made to the original code-based design so
that the design objective of Life Safety performance is
expected to be achieved under design earthquake .
In 2013 M. A. Ismaeil, et.al. (the Author of this paper)
presented a series of earthquake researches on "Assessment of
Seismic Performance and Strengthening of RC Existing
Residential Buildings in the Sudan" [8], "Seismic Retrofitting
of a RC Building by Adding Steel Plate Shear Walls" [9], and
"Effects of Earthquake loads on Existing School Buildings in
Sudan" [10]. These studies were conducted to investigate the
performance of samples of existing RC buildings in the city of
Khartoum, Sudan.

II. DESCRIPTION of THE STUDY CASE

This case study is a typical three stories model for hospital
building in the Sudan. The building is comprised of a
reinforced concrete structural frame with infill masonry walls.
The structure members are made of in-situ reinforced
concrete .The overall plan dimension is 21.5x13m. Height of
the building is 9.6 m .The floor is a flat slab system. Figures 13 give detailed information on the architectural layout of the
hospital. The lateral force resisting system consists of moment
resisting frames without shear walls. The rectangular shape is
used for the columns. Columns and beams sizes along the
building height are listed in Tables I and II.

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology (IJAST)

Table 1
The cross sections of columns

Story No.

The cross sections of columns

Ground floor

300x500

First floor

300x500

Second floor

300x500
Table 2
The cross sections of beams

Story No.

The cross sections of beams

Ground floor

300x500

First floor

300x500

Second floor

300x500

Fig 3. South elevation

2.1 Numerical model

Numerical models for the case have been prepared using
SAP2000 version 14 (Computers and Structures) [1]. Beams
and columns are modelled as frame elements and slabs are
modelled as shell elements. In this paper the seismic
performance of the considered residential building was
evaluated using the nonlinear static analysis procedure
(Pushover Analysis).
Figure 4 and 5 show the model of 3 stories hospital building
and layout of columns.

Fig 1. Foundation plan

Fig 4. Model of 3 stories hospital building

Fig 5. Label of columns

Fig 2. Ground Floor Plan

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology (IJAST)

2.2 Load cases

3.2. Equivalent lateral static loads

For the pushover analysis, three load cases were considered:

The base shear force is distributed as a lateral force, which

affects the joint, at each level of the building.

1- PUSHGRAVITY (Applying the gravity loads).

2- PUSH+X (Appling lateral loads in the X-X direction).
3-PUSH+Y (Appling lateral loads in the Y-Y direction).
III. SEISMIC LOADS ON THE BUILDING
3.1. Base shear force
The Uniform Building Code (UBC1997) [2] requires that the
design base shear, V, is to be evaluated from the following
formula:

Cv I W
.............................(1)
RT

IV. PUSHOVER ANALYSIS

The pushover analysis is a static non-linear analysis under
permanent gravity loads and gradually increasing lateral loads.
Static pushover analysis is an attempt by the structural
engineering profession to evaluate the real strength of the
structure and it promises to be a useful and effective tool for
performance based design [9].
4.1.Application of pushover analysis.
Pushover analysis may be applied to verify the structural
performance of newly designed
1. To verify the over strength ratio values.

The total design base shear does not need to exceed

the following:

2. To estimate the expected plastic mechanism and the

distribution of damage.

2.5 Ca I W
.. (2)
R

3. To assess the structural performance of existing or retrofitted

buildings.

4. As an alternative to the design based on linear analysis.

The total design base shear shall not be less than the
following:

V 0.11Ca IW

The ATC-40 [4] and FEMA-356 [3] documents have

developed modelling parameters, acceptance criteria and
procedures of pushover analysis.

.(3)

V = total design lateral force or shear at the base.

W = total seismic dead load
The approximate fundamental period (T), in seconds, is
determined from the following equation:
T = Ct . hn3/4

SAP2000 nonlinear version offers very strong and

significant characteristics for the nonlinear static pushover
analysis. Both 2D and 3D structures can be analysed as
pushover analysis on SAP2000 nonlinear version [1].
The nonlinear behaviour of the frame members are determined
by particular hinges and the structural capacity drop occurs for
the said hinges.

............(4)

whereas: Ca and Cv are acceleration and velocity based seismic

co-efficients respectively. Ct = 0.035 (0.0853) for steel
moment-resisting frames. Ct = 0.030 (0.0731) for reinforced
concrete moment-resisting frames and eccentrically braced
frames. Ct = 0.020 (0.0488) for all other buildings.
The base shear shall be distributed over the height of the
structure, including Level n, according to the following
formula:
............................(5)

Where as
Ft = 0 when T 0.7 sec.
Ft = 0.07 T V < 0.25 V;

4.2 STATIC NONLINEAR ANALYSIS USING FEM

SOFTWARE

when T >0.7 sec.

After performing analysis certain points are achieved

ranging from A to E as shown in Figure 6. Point A shows the
unloaded state, Point B shows yielding state of an element,
point C represents nominal strength and co-ordinate of point C
on displacement axis shows deformation at which significant
amount of strength degradation occurs. The part from C to D in
the above figure shows the starting failure of an element and
the strength of the element to resist lateral forces is unreliable
after point C. The portion D to E on the curve shows that only
the gravity loads are sustained by the frame elements. After
point E, the structure has no more capacity to sustain gravity
loads [11]. Performance point and location of hinges in
various stages can be obtained from pushover curve as
shown in Figure 1. The range AB is elastic range, B to IO is
the range of immediate occupancy IO to LS is the range of
life safety and LS to CP is the range of collapse prevention. If

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology (IJAST)

all the hinges are within the CP limit then the structure is
said to be safe. However, depending upon the importance
of structure the hinges after IO range may also need to be
retrofitted.

Figure 7. Static approximation used in the pushover analysis [12].

1.Direction X
Fig 6. Force-deformation for pushover hinge [11]

4.3 Acceptance Criteria (Performance Level)

Three points labelled IO, LS and CP as referred in Figure 6
are used to define the Acceptance Criteria or performance level
for the plastic hinge formed near the joints (at the ends of
beams and columns). IO, LS and CP stand for Immediate
Occupancy, Life Safety and Collapse Prevention, respectively.
The values assigned to each of these points vary depending on
the type of member as well as many other parameters defined
in the ATC-40 and FEMA-273 documents.
4.3.1 Seismic demand and performance point
The performance point is the point where the capacity curve
crosses the demand curve according to ATC-40.Two main
approaches are used to evaluate the performance point
(maximum inelastic displacement of the structure), CapacitySpectrum Method of ATC-40 [4] and Coefficient Method of
FEMA 356 [3]. In the present study the Capacity-Spectrum
Method is more suitable for the evaluation task.

Figure 8. The pushover curves, in term of Base Shear-Roof Displacement

indirections X

Direction Y

In the Capacity-Spectrum Method of ATC-40, the process

begins with the generation of a force-deformation relationship
for the structure. Then the results are plotted in AccelerationDisplacement Response Spectrum (ADRS) format as shown in
Figures 7. This format is a simple conversion of the base shear
versus roof displacement relationship using the dynamic
properties of the system, and the result is termed capacity
spectrum for the structure.
(a) Base shear versus top displacement
A static nonlinear (pushover) analysis of the building was
carried out using SAP2000. A maximum roof displacement of
0.5 m was chosen to be applied .A pushover analysis was
carried out separately in the X and Y directions. The resulting
pushover curves, in terms of Base Shear-Roof Displacement
(V-U), are given in Figures 8 and 9 for X and Y directions.

Figure 9.The pushover curves, in term of Base Shear-Roof Displacement

indirections Y

(b)The performance point

The performance point is the point where the capacity curve
crosses the demand curve according to ATC-40.Figure for X

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direction and figure 13 for Y direction show the performance

point for all push over curves. Figure 10 shows the
performance point with the red colour is the elastic spectrum,
the green curve represents the spectrum resistant and the
yellow line defines the point as defined by ATC-40.The
intersection of the yellow line (demand) and the green curve
(capacity) is the performance point.

Figure 12. Yielding pattern of the structure at the performance point in Y

direction (step 2)
Figure 10. Capacity and demand [13]

Tables 3 give the coordinates of each step of the pushover

curve and su

1. Directions X
This analysis was completed in 12 steps and performance point
was set between steps 2 and 3 of the analysis.
Table 2. Shows some of steps of the analysis for X direction
and for each step shows the details for the capacity and demand
curve. Figures 12 presents the overall yielding pattern of the
structure at the performance point for X direction.

mmarizes the number of hinges in each state (for example,

between IO, LS, CP or between D and E).
Table 3
Pushover curve demand capacity - ATC40 at
Teff Beff SdCapacity

Step

SaCapacity

Figure 11.Pushover capacity curve and performance point at X direction

X direction

SdDemand

SaDemand

0.00

0.13 0.05

0.00

0.00

0.00

1.00

1.00

0.13 0.05

0.00

0.95

0.00

1.00

2.00

0.13 0.06

0.00

1.09

0.00

0.95

3.00

0.17 0.18

0.01

1.49

0.00

0.59

4.00

0.18 0.21

0.01

1.53

0.00

0.54

5.00

0.18 0.21

0.01

1.53

0.00

0.54

6.00

0.33 0.33

0.04

1.49

0.01

0.44

7.00

0.43 0.34

0.07

1.55

0.02

0.44

8.00

0.56 0.77

0.07

0.92

0.03

0.40

9.00

0.56 0.76

0.07

0.92

0.03

0.40

10.00

0.60 0.89

0.07

0.81

0.03

0.37

11.00

0.60 0.88

0.07

0.81

0.03

0.37

Table 4
The computed limit states for the studied building in X direction

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Step
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

A
toB
1900
1898
1878
1841
1823
1820
1820
1816
1816
1816
1816
1816
1816

International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology (IJAST)

B
toIO
0
2
22
59
77
80
32
36
36
36
36
36
36

IO
toLS
0
0
0
0
0
0
48
0
0
0
0
0
0

LS
toCP
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
24
24
20
20
8
8

CP
toC
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

C
toD
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
24
0
4
0
12
0

D
toE
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
24
24
28
28
40

Bey
ondE
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

Total
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
Figure 13.Pushover capacity curve and performance point at Y direction

Table 5

Table 6

Displacement and base force at X direction

Pushover Curve Demand Capacity (ATC-40) at Y direction

Step

Sa
Capacity

0.05

Sd
Capacity
m
0.00

0.06
0.06
0.06
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05

0.03
0.05
0.07
0.09
0.11
0.13
0.16
0.18
0.19

Step

Teff

Beff

0.00

0.17

2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
9.00
10.00

0.18
0.18
0.18
0.18
0.18
0.18
0.18
0.18
0.18

Sa
Demand

0.00

Sd
Demand
m
0.01

3.43
6.06
8.83
11.38
13.93
16.63
19.75
22.26
24.24

0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01

0.96
0.96
0.97
0.97
0.97
0.98
0.98
0.98
0.98

Displacement

BaseForce

KN

5E-05

0.005

3760

0.006

4332

0.013

6338

0.015

6576

0.015

6586

0.043

6864

0.074

7171

0.074

4238

0.075

4245

Table 7

10

0.075

3757

The computed limit states for the studied building in Y direction

11

0.077

3763

12

0.073

2230

1.00

IO

LS

CP

toB

ToIO

toLS

toCP

toC

toD

toE

412

412

2. Directions

411

412

This analysis was completed in 7 steps and performance point

was set between steps 2 and 3 of the analysis.

391

21

412

380

32

412

Table 6 shows the Pushover Curve Demand Capacity ATC40 in direction Y and Figure 14 presents the overall yielding
pattern of the structure at the performance point for Y direction.

374

38

412

368

44

412

358

54

412

352

56

412

Step

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Table 8

2. It is observed that the structural elements of the third floor

have not entered in the plastic zone in contrast to some
structural elements in the lower floors, as shown in Figures 12
and 14.

Displacement and base force at X direction

Step

Displacement

BaseForce

KN

0.007

3626.238

0.032

13964.96

0.058

24600.137

0.086

35768.907

0.111

46062.481

0.137

56366.077

VI. CONCLUSION

0.164

67231.236

The main output of a pushover analysis is in terms of

response demand versus capacity. If the demand curve
intersects the capacity envelope near the elastic range, then the
structure has a good resistance. If the demand curve intersects
the capacity curve with little reserve of strength and
deformation capacity, then it can be concluded that the
structure will behave poorly during the imposed seismic
excitation and need to be retrofitted to avoid future major
damage or collapse.

3. From the results obtained in X and Y directions the level of

plastic hinges are not exceed the IO Level , as shown in Tables
4 and 7.This means that the building is seismically safe .
4. It was found that the seismic performance of studied
building is adequate , because all elements were not reached
the Immediate Occupancy (IO) level ,as shown in Figures 12
and 14 for X and Y directions .

In this paper the building is investigated using pushover

analysis. These are conclusion obtained from this analysis:
1.
2.

3.

4.

Figure 14. Yielding pattern of the structure at the performance point in Y

direction (step 2)

5.

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

1- Pushover analysis was carried out separately in the X and
Y directions. The resulting pushover curves, in terms of Base
Shear Roof Displacement (V-), are given in Figures 8 & 9
for X and Y directions respectively. The slope of the pushover
curves is gradually changed with increase of the lateral
displacement of the building. This is due to the progressive
formation of plastic hinges in beams and columns throughout
the structure.

The pushover analysis is a simple way to explore the

nonlinear behavior of building.
Pushover analysis can identify weak elements by
predicting the failure mechanism and account for the
redistribution of forces during progressive yielding. It
may help engineers take action for rehabilitation work.
Pushover analysis is an approximation method based
on static loading. It may not accurately represent
dynamic phenomena.
The results show that design considering only gravity
load is found inadequate. Therefore, a structural
engineer should consider earthquakes in designing
building.
The building that was analysed according to UBC is
satisfactory. The performance point location is at IO
(Immediate Occupancy) level. It means the design
satisfies pushover analysis according to ATC -40.
REFERENCES

[1]

CSI. SAP2000 V-14. Integrated finite element analysis

and design of structures basic analysis reference manual.
Berkeley (CA, USA): Computers and Structures Inc;
2010.

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology (IJAST)

[2]

ICBO, et al.(1997) Uniform Building Code (UBC), by

International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO),
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[3]

Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA-356,

(2000) Prestandard and Commentary for Seismic
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[4]

Applied Technology Council, ATC-40 (1996): Seismic

Evaluation and Retrofit of Concrete Buildings, Vols. 1
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N. Jitendra BABU, K.V.G.D. BALAJI, and S.S.S.V.

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JIN
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M. A. Ismaeil,A. E. Hassaballa. Seismic Retrofitting of

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