THE 7th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

"CIVIL ENGINEERING - SCIENCE AND PRACTICE"

GNP 2020 – Kolašin, Montenegro, 10-14 March 2020

Zlatko Džanić1, Mustafa Hrasnica2, Senad Medić3, Fadil Biberkić4

OPTIMIZED BEHAVIOUR OF VERTICALLY IRREGULAR FRAMES

UNDER SEISMIC LOAD

Abstract
This paper analyses the irregular structure with abrupt geometry changes using a genetic
optimization algorithm to achieve satisfactory earthquake behaviour. Structural analysis of RC
frames according to the rules given in modern design codes (EC8) has many restrictions
regarding regularity of the building geometry and stiffness changes along the building height. In
other words, it is not possible correctly to analyse building with rules given in EC8 with sudden
changes of geometry and stiffness. It is well-known that this kind of geometry/stiffness changes
were main cause of the collapse of buildings under extreme seismic loading recorded by past
earthquake events. One particular failure mode has been observed many times: soft story
mechanism. This mechanism occurs exactly then when we have sudden changes of the
geometry (stiffness) from one to the next story level. During an earthquake, soft story level is
extremely vulnerable and most damage is quickly concentrated within it. This will prevent the
even distribution of damage by the height of the building and the achievement of the desired
behaviour of the building under seismic loading. Ideally, the structure is designed in the way
that damage occurs only at predefined locations: at the bottom of the first-floor columns and at
the ends of the beams. This results in a favourable system with strong columns and weak beams
that allows the seismic energy to be dissipated without compromising the stability of the
building. Nevertheless, many irregular structures will continue to be built, for example because
of architectural, aesthetic or functional reasons and in order to design a building of this type,
numerous trial and error calculations have to be implemented. It is extremely hard to achieve
optimal design and one has to use some kind of the optimization methods. We have
implemented very robust genetic algorithm (GA) which has been proven in many highly
nonlinear engineering problems.
Key words
Irregular reinforced concrete frame, seismic design, finite element analysis, optimization,
genetic algorithm, nonlinear time history analysis

1
MSc, Keller Grundbau GmbH, Vienna, Austria, e-mail: dzanic_z@yahoo.com
2
PhD, Full Professor, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, e-mail:
hrasnica@bih.net.ba
3
PhD, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, e-mail:
senad_medic@yahoo.com
4
MSc, Assistant, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, e-mail:
fadil_biberkic@gf.unsa.ba

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1. INTRODUCTION

Reinforced concrete frames (or Reinforced Concrete Special Moment Frames) are used as
main structural system alone or in combination with shear walls to support vertical gravity loads
and horizontal loads due to wind and earthquake. In modern codes (EC8) [1] and guides (NEHRP
Seismic Design Technical Brief No. 1) [2] special care is taken to structural design and
reinforcement detailing to provide expected behaviour under extreme earthquake loading.
It is of the utmost importance to ensure a uniform distribution of inter story drift along the
height of the building and thereby prevent the concentration of drift in only one so-called: soft
story. To achieve this one has to design RC frame following strong column-weak beam principle.
Interstory drift must be limited especially when we have secondary non-structural infill walls which
are not designed to accommodate large interstory drifts.
According to [1] there are prescribed deformation limits (interstory drift due to the
“frequent” earthquake):
 0,5% for brittle non-structural elements attached to the structure
 0,75% for ductile non-structural elements attached to the structure
 1,0% for non-structural elements not interfering with the structure
When we analyse irregular RC frame calculation becomes even more complicated and to
achieve satisfactory design one has to run many calculations using trial error method. It is obvious
that this is very demanding and time-consuming task.
When we have a frame with sudden changes in geometry and stiffness (with changes that
are exceeding the limits given by regulations) the calculation becomes very complicated and it is
very difficult to achieve the optimal design of the structure. To solve this problem one has to resort
to some of the optimization methods. There are many optimization methods and generally they can
be divided into classic gradient methods and new gradient-independent heuristic methods.
As typical examples for the first ones we have the Newton gradient method and the genetic
algorithm as representative of the second ones. Although it converges very quickly to a local
optimal solution, the Newton method is highly dependent on the starting point and for solving
nonlinear problems it is not able to find the global optimum point. On the other hand, the genetic
algorithm is a very robust method, which has been successfully proven on many highly nonlinear
engineering problems.
This method is able to get close to the point of the global optimum and then the Newton
method is used to determine the exact solution. Genetic algorithm (GA) [4] in combination with
Newton's gradient method was used to solve our problem as mentioned above. The objective
function used to determine the optimum point is defined as the sum of the volume of all concrete
elements (beams and columns).
Therefore, the goal of our optimization is to minimize material consumption, in order to
achieve lightweight construction. The optimization process, on the other hand, is performed under
imposed constraints. In order to be able to correctly evaluate the behaviour of the structure under
the influence of an earthquake, it is necessary to measure the displacements of floors in time and to
determine the relative displacements (interstory drifts). Interstory drift is used as a basic measure of
behaviour and on the basis of its value it is possible to estimate the probable degree of damage to

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the main (columns and beams) and secondary structures (partition walls, facade, etc.). The
constraints imposed on the objective function are precisely the limitations of interstory drifts.
Max interstory drift in this paper is limited to 0.005 (for partition walls, etc.). Achieving
minimal material consumption is a logical goal, but here it is necessary to pay attention to the fact
that structure costs make only a relatively small share in the total cost of the building (max 20%)
and that the prevention of damage to other non-structural elements is of far greater importance.
This goal is achieved precisely through the use of the limitation of the interstory drift. The structure
was modelled and the calculation was performed in software SAP2000nl (see image below).

Figure 1. RC frame elevation (optimized design)

All elements are modelled as nonlinear elements with predefined so-called. plastic joints
that are mounted at the ends of the elements of the beams and columns. Plastic joints are used to
model the nonlinear behaviour of structural elements and are positioned at the places where the
highest stresses (damages) are expected to occur. For our case of reinforced concrete frame, they
are placed exactly at the places of highest possible damages: at the ends of the beams (beam-
column connections) and at the ends of the columns.
The next important point is the need for proper modelling of the plastic joint in case of
dynamic loading where multiple cyclic reversible loading occurs. In this paper robust Takeda hinge
model is used.

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2. EARTHQUAKE LOAD AND NONLINEAR TIME HISTORY

ANALYSIS

Earthquake load is given as artificial earthquake accelerogram [3]. This accelerogram is

modelled in such way that it has response spectra which is good match for response spectra given
by design code [1]:
Spectrum type: 1
Ground type: B
Horizontal acceleration: ag=0,2g

Figure 2. Response spectra of artificial earthquake vs response spectra according to EC8 (left),
artificial accelerogram (right)

Seismic load for the SLS case is based on the accelerogram given above but it was scaled
with factor of 0,5. In this way is modelled seismic loading for the earthquakes that occurs more
frequently. ULS load is also given by same artificial accelerogram but this time without any scaling
factor.
For the earthquake load prescribed as shown above nonlinear time history analysis
considering P-delta effects (considering possible overall instabilities modes) have been performed.

3. OPTIMIZATION

The calculation was performed in two steps: in the first step, an optimization process was
carried out with the help of the genetic algorithm for SLS load. As design variables are taken cross
section dimensions: width bi and depth hi. Objective function is defined as total cost of all concrete
elements:
Minimize: Total Cost= Σ 𝑤𝑖𝑏𝑖ℎ𝑖 (1)

where wi is the concrete unit cost. Design procedure has to result with the reinforced
concrete frame that is on one hand sufficiently strong and ductile under strong earthquakes, on the
other hand building serviceability under moderate and minor earthquake must be provided without
significant damage of structural and non-structural parts of the building.

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Interstory drift is defined as follows:

Δ𝑢𝑖 = 𝑢𝑖 − 𝑢𝑖−1 ≤ 𝑑𝑖 ℎ𝑖 (𝑖 = 1,2,... , 𝑁) (2)

Δui is the interstory drift of the i-th story, ui and ui-1 are the displacement of two adjacent
floors, hi is the height of the i-th story and di is the drift limit ratio specified by code. The problem
of optimal design (optimal response of the building under earthquake load) can be generally
defined as:
Minimize the objective function
𝑓 = 𝑓(𝑥1, 𝑥2, … , 𝑥𝑁 ) (3)

Under prescribed constraints (interstory drift)

𝑔(𝑥1, 𝑥2, … , 𝑥𝑁) = Δ𝑢𝑖 𝑑𝑖/h𝑖 ≤ 1 (𝑖 = 1,2, . . , 𝑁) (4)

The variables are also constrained; they have predefined range (lower and upper limit)
𝑥𝑖,𝐿 ≤ 𝑥𝑖 ≤ 𝑥𝑖,𝑈 (𝑖 = 1,2, . . , 𝑁) (5)

Optimization analysis has been done using a genetic algorithm (GA). Simulation starts with
a population of random strings and each of them is then evaluated to calculate fitness value.
Thereafter, the population is operated by three operators: reproduction, crossover and mutation.
The new population of points is created and evaluated. If the termination criterion is not met,
population is operated by above three operators with new fitness evaluation. When GA algorithm
converges to the proximity of the global minimum point, then we can use gradient method and
quickly calculate the exact value of the global minimum.

When satisfactory convergence is achieved, the calculation is completed and the dimensions
of the structural elements are selected. With the new elements sizes a new calculation was carried
out but for the case of ULS load.

4. NONLINEAR ANALYSIS, CONCLUSIONS

For the earthquake load prescribed as shown above nonlinear time history analysis has been
performed. As we can see on following figures the wall was able to develop stable hysteresis loops
inside the plastic hinges without reaching system overall instability (Fig. 3.). On Fig. 4. We can see
distribution of the plastic hinges across the structure for SLS and ULS seismic loading. For SLS
case only limited plastification occurred at the beam ends (reaching immediate occupancy limit
acc. to FEMA 356 [5]) and for ULS loading system behaves as strong columns-weak beams
system.

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Char. moment-rotation curve for beam plastic Moment-rotation curve for column plastic
hinge hinge at the base level

Figure 3. Plastic hinges for ULS analysis

SLS - plastic hinges ULS - plastic hinges

Figure 4. Plastic hinges for SLS and ULS analysis

magenta: yielding point

blue: immediate occupancy
cyan: life safety
green: collapse prevention
from green to red: residual strength

Figure 5. Component or element deformation acceptance criteria [5]

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Table 1. Interstory drifts

Level Max. interstory drift Max. interstory drift
SLS load ULS load
8th 0,00484 0,00753
7th 0,00475 0,00721
6th 0,00468 0,00747
5th 0,00381 0,00685
4th 0,00369 0,00687
3rd 0,00356 0,00638
2nd 0,00279 0,00505
1st 0,00196 0,00418

Although plastic hinges were modelled at the end of all columns, we have activation of
plastic hinges only at the column bases at the ground level. Using optimization procedure, we have
achieved well designed structure that satisfies damage limitations for SLS load case (limitation of
interstory drifts) and behaves as expected for ULS load case, dissipating energy without occurrence
of weak story mechanism.

LITERATURE

[1] Eurocode 8: “Design of structures for earthquake resistance – Part 1: General rules, seismic actions
and rules for buildings”, 2004
[2] NEHRP Seismic Design Technical Brief No. 1., “Seismic Design of Reinforced Concrete Special
Moment Frames”,2016
[3] G. Papazafeiropoulos: “OpenSeismoMatlab”, 2019
[4] D. Kalynmoy: “Optimization for Engineering Design, Algorithms and Examples”, 2012
[5] FEMA 356: “PRESTANDARD AND COMMENTARY FOR THE SEISMIC REHABILITATION
OF BUILDINGS”, 2000

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