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Pushover analysis of reinforced concrete frame structure using SAP 2000

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 684 International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering
ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 684-690

Pushover analysis of reinforced concrete frame structure using SAP 2000

P. Poluraju,
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engg, KL University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, INDIA. rajupolup@gmail.com
P. V. S. Nageswara Rao
B.Tech Student, Dept. of Civil Engg, KL University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, INDIA. pvsnageswararao@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The Buildings, which appeared to be strong enough, may crumble like houses of cards during earthquake
and deficiencies may be exposed. Experience gain from the recent earthquake of Bhuj, 2001 demonstrates that the most
of buildings collapsed were found deficient to meet out the requirements of the present day codes. In last decade, four
devastating earthquakes of world have been occurred in India, and low to mild intensities earthquakes are shaking our
land frequently. It has raised the questions about the adequacy of framed structures to resist strong motions, since many
buildings suffered great damage or collapsed. To evaluate the performance of framed buildings under future expected
earthquakes, a non-linear static pushover analysis has been conducted. To achieve this objective, G+3 building was
analysed. The results obtained from this study show that properly designed frame will perform well under seismic loads.
KEYWORDS: Non-linear Static procedure; non-linear hinge properties, pushover analysis; reinforced concrete frame.

INTRODUCTION
The recent earthquakes including the last Algerian
earthquake in which many concrete structures have been
severely damaged or collapsed, have indicated the need for
evaluating the seismic adequacy of existing buildings. In
particular, the rehabilitation of older concrete structures in
high seismicity areas is matter of growing concern, since
structures venerable to damage must be identified and an
acceptable level of safety must be determined. To make
such assessment, simplified linear-elastic methods are not
adequate. Thus, the structural engineering community has
developed a new generation of design and seismic
procedures that incorporate performance based structures
and is moving away from Simplified linear elastic methods
and towards a more non-linear technique. Recent interests
in the development of performance based codes for the
design or rehabilitation of buildings in seismic active areas
show that an inelastic procedure commonly referred to as
the pushover analysis is a viable method to assess damage
vulnerability of buildings. Basically, a pushover analysis is
a series of incremental static analysis carried out to
develop a capacity curve for the building. Based on the
capacity curve, a target displacement which is an estimate
of the displacement that the design earthquake will
produce on the building is determined. The extent of
damage experienced by the structure at this target
displacement is considered representative of the damage
experienced by the building when subjected to design level
ground shaking. Many methods were presented to apply
the nonlinear static pushover (NSP) to structures. These
methods can be listed as: (1) the capacity spectrum method
(CSM) (ATC, [1]), (2) the displacement coefficient
method (DCM) (FEMA-356 [2], (3) modal pushover
analysis (MPA), [3]. The approach has been developed by
many researchers [4, 5] with minor variation in
computation procedure. Since the behaviour of reinforced
concrete structures may be highly inelastic under seismic
loads, the global inelastic performance of RC structures
will be dominated by plastic yielding effects and
consequently the accuracy of the pushover analysis will be
influenced by the ability of the analytical models to
capture these effects. In general, analytical models for the
pushover analysis of frame structures may be divided into
two main types: (1) distributed plasticity (plastic zone) and
(2) concentrated plasticity (plastic hinge). Although the
plastic hinge approach is simpler than the plastic zone, this
method is limited to its incapacity to capture the more
complex member behaviour that involve severe yielding
under the combined actions of compression and bi-axial
bending and buckling effects. In this paper, are presented
the results of pushover analysis of reinforced concrete
frames designed according to the IS1893:2002.
Pushover Methodology
A pushover analysis is performed by subjecting a structure
to a monotonically increasing pattern of lateral loads,
representing the inertial forces which would be
experienced by the structure when subjected to ground
shaking. Under incrementally increasing loads various
structural elements may yield sequentially. Consequently,
at each event, the structure experiences a loss in stiffness.
Using a pushover analysis, a characteristic non-linear force
displacement relationship can be determined.
Element Description of SAP2000
In SAP2000, a frame element is modelled as a line element
having linearly elastic properties and nonlinear force-
displacement characteristics of individual frame elements
are modelled as hinges represented by a series of straight
line segments. A generalized force-displacement
characteristic of a non-degrading frame element (or hinge
properties) in SAP2000 is shown in Figure 1.
Point A corresponds to unloaded condition and point B
represents yielding of the element. The ordinate at C
corresponds to nominal strength and abscissa at C
corresponds to the deformation at which significant
strength degradation begins. The drop from C to D
represents the initial failure of the element and resistance
to lateral loads beyond point C is usually unreliable. The
residual resistance from D to E allows the frame elements
to sustain gravity loads. Beyond point E, the maximum
deformation capacity, gravity load can no longer be
sustained.

#020410352 Copyright © 2011 CAFET-INNOVA TECHNICAL SOCIETY. All rights reserved

 Pushover analysis of reinforced concrete frame structure using SAP 2000 685

Hinges can be assigned at any number of locations with time. Tracking this motion at every time step to
(potential yielding points) along the span of the frame determine structural design requirements is judged
element as well as element ends. Uncoupled moment (M2 impractical. For nonlinear method it is easier and more
and M3), torsion (T), axial force (P) and shear (V2 and direct to use a set of lateral displacement as a design
V3) force-displacement relations can be defined. As the condition for a given structure and ground motion, the
column axial load changes under lateral loading, there is displacement is an estimate of the maximum expected
also a coupled P-M2-M3 (PMM) hinge which yields based response of the building during ground motion. Typical
on the interaction of axial force and bending moments at seismic demand Vs. Capacity is shown in Fig 2a & 2b
the hinge location. Also, more than one type of hinge can
be assigned at the same location of a frame element. There
are three types of hinge properties in SAP2000 [6]. They
are default hinge properties, user-defined hinge properties
and generated hinge properties. Only default hinge
properties and user-defined hinge properties can be
assigned to frame elements. When these hinge properties
(default and user-defined) are assigned to a frame element,
the program automatically creates a new generated hinge
property for each and every hinge. Default hinge
properties could not be modified and they are section
dependent. When default hinge properties are used, the
program combines its built-in default criteria with the
defined section properties for each element to generate the
final hinge properties. The built-in default hinge properties
for steel and concrete members are based on ATC-40 [2]
and FEMA-273 [1] criteria. User-defined hinge properties
can be based on default properties or they can be fully
user-defined. When user-defined properties are not based
on default properties, then the properties can be viewed
and modified. The generated hinge properties are used in
the analysis. They could be viewed, but they could not be
modified.

Fig 2. Typical seismic demand Vs. Capacity

(a) Safe Design (b) Unsafe Design

Fig1. Concrete Hinge
Capacity:
The overall capacity of a structure depends on the strength
and deformation capacities of the individual components
of the structure. A Pushover analysis procedure uses a
series of sequential elastic analysis, superimposed to
approximate a force –displacement capacity diagram of the
overall structure. The mathematical model of the structure
is modified to account for reduced resistance of yielding
components. A lateral force distribution is again applied
until a predetermined limit is reached. Pushover capacity
curves approximate how structure behaves after exceeding
the elastic limits.
Demand (Displacement):
Ground motions during an earthquake produce complex
horizontal displacement patterns in structure that may vary
Performance:
Once a capacity curve and demand displacement is
defined, a performance check can be done. A performance
verifies that structural & non-structural components are
not damaged beyond the acceptable limits of performance
objectives for the forces and displacement implied by the
displacement demand.
Description of frame structure
The G+3 building is considered in this study. This
structure is designed according to Indian Code
IS1893:2002 and is located in Zone III. The material
Properties are M20Grade concrete, Fe 500 steel for the
yield strength of the longitudinal and transverse
reinforcement. The plan layout is shown in fig 3. The
typical floor height is 3.5m and the details of beams and
columns are shown in table1.
The mass calculations of the stories and centre of mass are
shown in table 2.
The Pushover loads as per IS 1893 are shown in table 3.

International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering

ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 684-690
686 P. Poluraju and P. V. S. Nageswara rao

Modelling Approach
The general finite element package SAP 2000 has been
used for the analyses. A three-dimensional model of each
structure has been created to undertake the non-linear
analysis. The Existing model and loading structure shown
in fig 4. Beams and columns are modeled as nonlinear
frame elements with lumped plasticity at the start and the
end of each element. SAP 2000 provides default-hinge

Fig 3a. Plan of frames at 1234

Fig 3b. Elevation of frames at 1234

Table 1 Specifications
Beam column
230×350mm 230×300mm
(End beams) (Corner columns)
230×300mm 230×350mm(Remain)
(Remain)

Table 2 Masses at different floor levels

Height in ‘m’ Mass in KN-s2/m
15.450 42.66
11.950 47.88
8.450 47.88
4.950 48.94
0.750 44.82

Table 3 Pushover loads (As per IS 1893)

Height in ‘m’ Qi ‘KN’

15.450 234.545 Fig 4. Existing model and loading structure
11.950 144.490
8.450 72.246 Properties and recommends PMM hinges for columns and
4.950 27.590 M3 hinges for beams as described in FEMA-356.

International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering

ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 684-690
 Pushover analysis of reinforced concrete frame structure using SAP 2000 687

Pushover Analysis
After assigning all properties of the models, the
displacement –controlled pushover analysis of the models
are carried out. The models are pushed in monotonically
increasing order until target displacement is reached or
structure loses equilibrium; whichever occurs first. For this
purpose, target displacement at roof level and number of
steps in which this displacement must be defined. In this
study, target displacement is taken 4% of building height.
Pushover curve is a base shear force versus roof
displacement curve. The peak of this curve represents
maximum lateral load carrying capacity of the structure.
The initial stiffness of the structure is obtained from the
tangent at pushover curve at zero load level. The collapse
is assumed when structure losses its 75% strength and
corresponding roof displacement is called “maximum roof
displacement”.
When a hinge reaches point C on its force-displacement
curve that hinge must begin to drop load. The way load is
dropped from a hinge that has reached point C is that the
pushover force (base shear) is reduced until the force in
that hinge is consistent with the force at point D. As the
force is dropped, all elements unload, and the displacement
is reduced. Once the yielded hinge reaches the Point D
force level, the pushover force is again increased and the
displacement begins to increase again.
If 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.

It is a plot drawn between base shear and roof

displacement. Performance point and location of hinges in
various stages can be obtained from pushover curve as
shown in Fig.5. 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.

Fig.5 Different Stages of Plastic hinge

The Different Building performance levels are shown in
table 4.

Table 4 Different Performance levels in Building

Building Performance Levels

Immediate
Collapse Life Safety Operational
Occupancy
Prevention Level Level Level
Level
Overall
Severe Moderate light Very light
Damage
Little residual Some residual No permanent drift. No permanent
stiffness and Strength and stiffness Structure substantially drift; structure
strength, but load left in all stories. retains original substantially
bearing Gravity-load-bearing Strength and stiffness. Retains original
Columns and walls elements function. No Minor cracking of strength and
function. Large Out-of-plane failure of facades, partitions, stiffness.
permanent drifts. walls or tipping of and ceilings as well as Minor cracking of
General Some exits parapets. Some structural elements. facades, partitions,
blocked. Infills permanent drift. Elevators can be and ceilings as
and unbraced Damage to partitions. restarted. Fire well as structural
Parapets failed or Building may be beyond protection operable. elements. All
at incipient failure. economical repair. Systems important
Building is near to normal
collapse operation are
functional.
Falling hazards Equipment and Negligible damage
Non- mitigated but many contents are generally occurs. Power and
structural Extensive damage. architectural, secure, but may not other utilities are
Components mechanical, and operate due to available, possibly
electrical systems mechanical from

International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering

ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 684-690
 688 P. Poluraju and P. V. S. Nageswara rao

Results and Discussions

The resulting pushover curve for the G+3 building is
shown in fig 6. The curve is initially linear but start to
deviate from linearity as the beams and columns undergo
inelastic actions. When the building is pushed well into the
inelastic range, the curve become linear again but with a
smaller slope. The curve could be approximated by a
bilinear relationship. A target displacement of 2.32×10^-
3m for G+3 Building, the base shear of the structure was
2185.0847 KN.

Fig 8 Deformed shape of the frame at Step-0

Fig 6. Pushover Curve

From the figure 7 it is obvious that the demand curve tend

to intersect the capacity curve near the event point B,
which means an elastic response and the security margin is
greatly enhanced. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
margin safety against collapse is high and there are
sufficient strength and displacement reserves.

Fig 9 Deformed shape of the frame at step 1

Fig 7. Capacity-Demand Curve for G+3 building.

Plastic hinges mechanisms

Plastic hinges formation for the building mechanisms have
been obtained at different displacement levels. The hinging
patterns are plotted at different levels in figures 8 to16.
Plastic hinges formation starts with beam ends and base
columns of lower stories, then propagates to upper stories
and continue with yielding of interior intermediate
columns in the upper stories. But since yielding occurs at
events B, IO and LS respectively, the amount of damage in
the building will be limited. Fig.10 Deformed shape of the frame at step 2

International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering

ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 684-690
 Pushover analysis of reinforced concrete frame structure using SAP 2000 689

Fig 11.Deformed shape of the frame at step-3 Fig.14 Deformed shape of the frame at step-5

Fig.12 Deformed shape of the frame at step-6

Fig.15 Deformed shape at step-7

Fig.13 Deformed shape of the frame at step-4 Fig.16 Deformed shape at step-8

International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering

ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 684-690
 690 P. Poluraju and P. V. S. Nageswara rao
CONCLUSIONS
The performance of reinforced concrete frames was
investigated using the pushover Analysis. These are the
conclusions drawn from the analyses:
1. The pushover analysis is a relatively simple way to
explore the non-linear behaviour of
Buildings
2. The behaviour of properly detailed reinforced concrete
frame building is adequate as Indicated by the
intersection of the demand and capacity curves and the
distribution of Hinges in the beams and the columns.
Most of the hinges developed in the beams and few in
the columns but with limited damage
3. The causes of failure of reinforced concrete during the
earthquake may be attributed to the quality of the
materials
4. The results obtained in terms of demand, capacity and
plastic hinges gave an insight into the real behaviour of
structures.
5. It must be emphasized that the pushover analysis is
approximate in nature and is based on static loading. As
such it cannot represent dynamic phenomena with a
large degree of accuracy. It may not detect some
important deformation modes that may occur in a
structure subjected to severe earthquakes, and it may
exaggerate others. Inelastic dynamic response may differ
significantly from predictions based on invariant or
adaptive static load patterns, particularly if higher mode
effects become important.
6. Thus performance of pushover analysis primarily
depends upon choice of material models included in the
study.
International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering
ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 684-690
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7. It would be desirable to study more cases before
reaching definite conclusions about the behaviour of
reinforced concrete frame buildings.
REFERENCES
[1] Applied Technology Council, ATC-40. Seismic
evaluation and retrofit of concrete Buildings,
California, 1996; Vols. 1 and 2.
[2] Federal Emergency Federal Agency, FEMA-356.Pre-
standard and Commentary for Seismic Rehabilitation
of Buildings. Washington DC, 2000.
[3] Chopra AK, Goel RK, Report No PEER 2001/03, A
modal pushover analysis procedure to estimate
seismic demands for buildings: Theory and
preliminary evaluation, Pacific Earthquake
Engineering Research Centre, University of
California, Berkeley, California. 2001
[4]. Fajfar P, Fishinger, 1988, M. N2-A Method for
nonlinear seismic analysis of regular buildings, Proc.
9th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering,
Tokyo, 5:111-16.
[5] Fajfar P, Gaperesic P, 1991, The N2 method for the
seismic damage analysis of RC buildings,
Journal of Earthquake Engineering and Structural
Dynamics, 25:31-46.
[6] CSI, SAP 2000, Ver. 10.07, integrated finite element
analysis and design of structures basic analysis
reference manual. Berkeley (CA, USA): Computers
and Structures INC; 2006.