Proceedings of the 19th ASEP International Convention:

“Structural Engineering for Infrastructure Resilience”, 30 May – 1 June 2019, ISSN 1656-757

EFFECT OF HIGHER MODES ON THE SEISMIC FORCES USED IN

STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF BUILDINGS FOR RESILIENCE
Allan B. Benogsudan – abbenogsudan@yahoo.com
Technological Institute of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines

ABSTRACT

Disaster resilience is enhanced by developing a robust capability to predict the effects of hazards on the
performance of buildings. However, simplified seismic design are based on the fundamental mode of
vibration disregarding the effect of higher modes or assuming them in the elastic behaviour. In this paper, the
uncoupled modal response history analysis is carried out to study the effect of higher modes on the seismic
forces used in the structural design of buildings. Five and ten stories reinforced concrete (RC) frame
buildings without and with three lateral loads resisting systems, which are moment resisting frame system,
dual frame system, and bearing wall system are investigated with respect to story displacements, inter-story
drifts, floor inertial shears, story accelerations, mode shapes for total displacement and equivalent stresses.
Comparative study is conducted to evaluate the effect of higher modes on seismic forces applied on the
lateral loads resisting systems on the performance of buildings as opposed to fundamental modes only. The
results suggest that the story inertial forces and accelerations at all stories, and shear forces at higher stories
are significantly affected by higher modes, even for first-mode dominated structures. The contribution of
higher modes depends on the ground motion characteristics, the overstrength associated with each lateral
load system design of the building, and the response quantity investigated.

About the Author

Allan B. Benogsudan was a Program Chair of the Civil Engineering Department of the
Technological Institute of the Philippines at Quezon City, Philippines. He is currently on
sabbatical leave to finish his PhD in Structural Engineering at the University of the
Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. His research interests are on fire spread dynamics,
performance-based design of structures, disproportionate collapse of structures, and
outcomes-based civil engineering education.