Calculation Methods for Inter-Story

Drifts of Building Structures

Jian Cai1,2, Guobin Bu2,*, Chun Yang1, Qingjun Chen1 and Zhiliang Zuo2
1State Key Lab of Subtropical Building Science, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
2School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

(Received: 7 May 2013; Received revised form: 3 November 2013; Accepted: 20 February 2014)

Abstract: The current methods for calculating the inter-story harmful drift are
evaluated, and new concepts of the inter-story average shear drift and the inter-story
average rotation are proposed in this paper. The definitions and contents of the inter-
story harmful and harmless drift are introduced. Four existing methods for calculating
the harmful and harmless drift, including the secant method, tangent method, fixing
floor method, and generalized shear deformation of region method are revisited, and
the advantages as well as shortcomings of these methods are compared. Meanwhile,
the misunderstanding in calculating the floor rotation is clarified. The inter-story
average shear drift and the inter-story average rotation are proposed. In addition, the
relationships among these proposed drifts and the harmful drift are derived, and are
examined by the static and dynamic analysis of a simplified structural model. It
demonstrates that the proposed drifts are effective in both static as well as dynamic
analysis, and can be used for providing more specific information in the structural
deformation analysis.

Key words: inter-story harmful drift, generalized shear deformation, average shear drift, average rotation, dynamic
analysis.

1. INTRODUCTION
Inter-story drift is one of the particularly useful
engineering response quantity and indicator in
performance-based seismic engineering, especially for
high-rise buildings. In current seismic codes (UBC
1997; IBC 2006; EC8 2004; GB50011-2010 2010), the
inter-story drift of building structures is defined as the
relative translational displacement difference between
two consecutive floors. However, the inter-story drift is
considered as two major components: the flexural drift
and the shear drift (Fuyama et al. 1997). For high-rise
buildings, it is likely that a significant portion of the
inter-story drift in the upper stories is due to axial
deformations in the columns of the lower stories. This
inter-story drift causes no damage to structures and is
defined as the flexural drift. In respect to the shear drift,
Bertero et al. (1991) derived the relationship between
the total drift and the shear drift for a single panel. This
derived formula was used by Moghaddam et al. (2005)
and Hajirasouliha (2010) for analyzing the shear story
drift of concentrically braced frames. Differently,
researchers in China divided the inter-story drift into
two parts including the harmful and harmless drift
(Liu 1993). The harmful drift is the deformation that can
directly make damages to the calculated story and is
induced by the deformation of the vertical members in
the calculated story. The harmless drift is caused by the
rotation of the inferior floor, which is considered to be
harmless as no internal drift but rigid body deformation
occurs. Considerable works have been done to
investigate the calculation methods of the inter-story
harmful drift (Zhang et al. 1999; Xin et al. 2000; Wei
and Wang 2006; Deng et al. 2008; Zhen and Xie 2010).
These methods focus on structures predominated by the

*Corresponding author. Email address: guobin.bu@163.com; Fax: +86-020-8711-4801; Tel: +86-020-8711-4801.

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 Calculation Methods for Inter-Story Drifts of Building Structures

flexural-type or flexural-shear-type deformation, such ∆u%i = ∆usi + ∆ubi (2)

as the shear wall and frame-shear wall structures. For
shear-type buildings, such as the frame structures, the The harmless inter-story drift is caused by the
displacement induced by the floor rotation is much flexural deformation of the vertical members in the
smaller than the translational displacement. However, inferior story, or the rotation of the inferior floor. It is
with the increment of height, this rotation effect may considered to be harmless to the calculated story as no
increase and can’t be ignored. In addition, these internal drift but rigid body deformation occurs. So the
methods are based on the plane-section assumption '
harmless inter-story drift of the i-th story is ∆ubi . Thus,
which are not always reasonable and need to be the relationship between the harmful and harmless inter-
evaluated. story drift can also be expressed as
Many researchers and engineers do not notice the
difference between the inter-story drift and the inter-
∆u%i = ∆ui − ∆ui' −1 (3)
story harmful drift. Also, few programmers have
considered the harmful drift in their structural analysis
Four current methods for calculating the harmful
procedures. Many engineers may unreasonably use the
inter-story drift are introduced. The advantages as well
inter-story drift as unique standard for structural
as shortcomings are compared in this section. It should
behavior judgment, which may eventually lead to
be noted that these methods are just suitable for the
unacceptable results and relatively conservative
shear wall or the frame-shear wall structure,
conclusions. Therefore, it’s urgent for researches to
predominated by flexural-type or flexural-shear type
further study the inter-story deformation and put
deformation and based on the plane-section assumption.
forward an effective approach on the inter-story harmful
drift calculation.
2.1. Secant Method
The objective of the present paper is to evaluate the
One of the first formal provisions for calculating the
current methods for calculating the harmful drift and
harmful inter-story drift of the flexural-type structure is
propose new concepts for it. Four current methods are
the Guangdong provincial additional regulations (JGJ3
evaluated by comparing both the advantages and
2005). The basic principles are shown in Figure 1. In
shortcomings. The misunderstanding of the floor
this code, the harmful inter-story drift is calculated by
rotation is discussed. Two concepts (i.e., the inter-story
average shear drift and the inter-story average rotation)
∆u%i = ui − ui −1 − θi −1hi = ∆ui − θi −1hi (4)
are proposed, and the relationships among the propose
drifts and the harmful drift are derived and examined where ∆u%i denotes the harmful inter-story drift of the
based on the static and dynamic analysis of a simplified i-th story, ui and ui–1 are the i-th and i-1-th story
structural model.
∆ui −1 ∆ui
2. EVALUATION ON CALCULATION
METHODS OF HARMFUL DRIFT
i-th floor
The inter-story drift consists of the following three parts
as: (1) The inter-story shear drift induced by the vertical
members in the calculated story ∆us, (2) The inter-story
flexural drift induced by the vertical members in the
hi

calculated story ∆ub, and (3) The inter-story flexural θ i −1

drift induced by the vertical members in the inferior
story ∆ub' (Liu 1993). Then, the inter-story drift of the i- θi
i-1-th floor
th story can be denoted as θ i −1 Approximate
Closed to floor rotation
right angle
'
∆ui = ( ∆usi + ∆ubi ) + ∆ubi (1)
hi −1

The harmful inter-story drift is referred to the drift θ i−1

that can directly make damages to the calculated story
i-2-th floor
and is induced by the deformation of the vertical
members in the calculated story (Wei and Wang 2006).
It can be obtained from Eqn 1, and written as Figure 1. The secant method principle

736 Advances in Structural Engineering Vol. 17 No. 5 2014

Jian Cai, Guobin Bu, Chun Yang, Qingjun Chen and Zhiliang Zuo
horizontal displacement, θi−1 is the horizontal
displacement angle of the i−1-th story, and hi is the i-th
story height. Based on the same principle, Deng (2008)
derived a much simple expression of the harmful inter-
story drift by the recursion method denotes as
∆u%i = ∆ui − ∆ui' −1
(5)
Actually, Eqn 5 can be also derived easily by
assuming hi−1 equals to hi in Eqn 6 from Xu’s study (Xu
2005), in which the harmful inter-story drift angle is
defined as
u −u u −u ∆u ∆uu
θ%i = θi − θi −1 = i i −1 − i −1 i − 2 = i − i −1 (6)
hi hi −1 hi hi −1
This approach is defined as the secant method, and
essentially shows the idea that the harmless inter-story
drift (induced by the inferior floor rotation or rigid
body rotation) should be subtracted from the total
deformation. Meanwhile, it provides a very simple
way for engineers to calculate the harmful inter-story
drift. However, as can be seen from Figure 1, it is
assumed that the inferior floor rotation angle is equal
to θi−1, the secant angle of the horizontal deformation
of the i−1-th story. In the actual practice, it may be not
equal to the actual tangent angle. As a result, it may
bring some errors and relatively larger harmful inter-
story drift theoretically. In addition, this method is
derived by monotonic static analysis of perfectly
flexural-type structures like shear walls. It may be not
applicable and causes larger error in dynamic analysis
as the flexural-shear deformation will occurs even in
pure wall structure, due to the possible reversal-
directional inertial earthquake load on two neighboring
floors, which differs from the static monotonic
analysis case.
2.2. Tangent Method
To reduce the errors induced by the secant method,
the tangent method is put forward (Zheng 2010). Just as
− 2.3. Fixing Floor Method
the name implies, θi−1 in Eqn 4 is replaced by θ i, the
average value of the tangent angle at the bottom end of
all vertical members in the whole story (see Figure 2).
− displacement degrees at the bottom of all vertical
By comparison, the tangent angle θ i−1 in Figure 2 is
closer to the practical floor rotation than that obtained
by the secant angle θi−1 in Figure 1. However, the
tangent angle is a mean value, which is averaged by the
deformation of the vertical structural members. It proves
in practical engineering that the rotation angles are
predominated by critical members (effective connection
elements) rather than all members. This will be deep
discussed in section 3.1.
Advances in Structural Engineering Vol. 17 No. 5 2014
∆ui −1 ∆ui
i-th floor
hi
_
θi
θi
_ i -1-th floor
θi Real
floor rotation
Right angle
hi −1
θ i−1
i -2-th floor
Figure 2. The tangent method principle
Similar to the secant method, the scope of this
method is also limited to flexural-type structures and
static load analysis case. In static case like push-over
analysis, the neighboring floors generally shift to the
same side as the equivalent seismic load in the two
floors are applied along the same direction, and leads to
pure flexural deformation (Figures 1 and 2). However,
in dynamic analysis, the neighboring floors may shift
reversely at certain time step due to the inertial force and
the randomness of real ground motions. Thus, the
structure will experience mixed flexural-shear
deformation even in pure wall structure (Figure 3).
Figure 3(a) shows the normal case that the total drift
angel is larger than the tangent angle (i.e., the harmless
drift), while Figure 3(b) shows the abnormal case that
the total drift angel is smaller the tangent angle. Thus,
this method may lead to unreasonable harmless floor
rigid body rotation in dynamic analysis cases.
When calculating the i-th story harmful drift ∆u%i , fix the
i−1-th floor by limiting all the rotation and translational
members, and apply the same static loads at floors
beyond the i−1-th floor as the case without fixing floor
(Han 2008). As shown in Figure 4, θi−1 equals to zero. It
means that there is no harmless drift in the i-th story as
there is no rotation in the inferior floor, and the total
deformation is considered to be harmful to structures.
Thus, the harmful drift in the i-th story can be easily
obtained by
737
 Calculation Methods for Inter-Story Drifts of Building Structures

Case 1 i -th floor Case 2 i -th floor

Normal: Abnormal:
θi1 < θi1 θi2 > θi2
θi − θi 1 > 0
1
θi1 θi2 − θi2 < 0
θi2

θi 1
θi 2
(i-1)-th floor (i -1)-th floor

(a) Case 1 (b) Case 2

Figure 3. Dynamic analysis cases for wall structure

Fn structural models and fix an identical floor at each case.

n-th floor
It seems to be too complicated in practical analysis.
Second, the boundary conditions, which are changed
when fixing a floor, are different form the origin model
and may make some errors. Finally, this method is just
suitable for the static analysis cases as the equivalent
~ ~
∆ui = ∆ui
lateral force distribution should be assumed before
analysis. In dynamic analysis, it becomes impossible to
Fi predict the dynamic load carried by each floor due to the
i -th floor randomness of earthquakes. The inertial seismic load
Fi-1 applied on neighboring floors in real dynamic cases may
i -1-th floor along reversal direction, which differs from the static
case by assuming equivalent seismic load for each floor
in the same monotonic direction (Figure 4).

2.4. Generalized Shear Deformation of Region

F1
first floor
Figure 4. The fixing floor method principle (Han 2008)
∆u%i = ∆ui
This method provides a direct way to calculate the
harmful inter-story drift and it can be applied to all the
shear-type, flexural-type and flexural-shear-type
structures. However, there are such shortcomings as
follows. First, the method consumes too much time to
get the harmful drift at each story, as it needs to build n
Method
Since the high-rise buildings, especially the frame-shear
structures, are usually predominated by flexural-shear
deformation rather than pure flexural or shear
deformation and may not be strictly confirm to the
plane-section assumption, a new parameter named
generalized shear deformation was put forward by Xin
(2000). In the study, the structure is divided into three
different regions of the wall, frame and coupling beam
region as shown in Figure 5, assuming each region has
(7)
different generalized shear deformation as
∆uij ∆vij
γ ij = − (8)
hi lij
where i is the story number, j is the member number, hi
is the i-th story height, lij is the span length of j-th

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Jian Cai, Guobin Bu, Chun Yang, Qingjun Chen and Zhiliang Zuo

y, v Coupling Coupling
beam
Shear wall Frame beam
beam

∆uij
j i, j-1
Frame Shear i, j
wall Frame
i

Shear
wall

9@3 m
i-1, j-1 ∆vij
θij
1 i-1, j

0 1 i j x,u

Figure 5. Definition of generalized shear deformation of region

(Xu 2005)

member, ∆uij and ∆vij are the horizontal and vertical

displacement of the j-th member, respectively.
Considering the incompatibility of different members,

4m
this method offers a way to calculate the harmless
displacement induced by each region. The rigid body
rotation of i−j region is defined as the ratio of the 3@5 m
vertical displacement difference of members to the Figure 6. Frame shear wall model
corresponding span, denoted as

∆vij 10
θij = (9) 9
lij
8

This rigid body rotation is much similar to the flexural 7

story drift induced by the column axial load defined in 6
Story

other studies, which is considered as the harmless 5

deformation component (Moghaddam et al. 2005; 4
Hajirasouliha 2010). To demonstrate the general shear 3
deformation of different regions, a simplified plane shear- 2
Total
Wall
wall model is established (Figure 6) and the pushover 1 Coupling beam
analyse is conducted. The general shear drifts in terms of Frame beam
0
the wall, coupling beam, and frame regions are presented 0.000 0.004 0.008 0.012 0.016 0.020
in Figure 7. As shown in the figure, the general shear General shear drift angle (rad)
drifts in the shear wall region are much smaller than the Figure 7. Comparison of harmful drift angle
total inter-story drifts. However, the general shear drifts
in frame region are much approach to the total inter-story
drifts, and those in coupling beam region are somehow as shown in Figure 8. In this case, such definition is not
larger than the total inter-story drifts. acceptable. Therefore, the author insists that the floor
This general shear deformation of region is based on rotation must be accompanied by the rotation of the
the rigid floor assumption in the vertical direction. structural nodes with relevant elements, which is much
However, in frame members, if the node of vertical approach to the practical analysis. In the wall structure,
member has no rotation but only vertical displacement, through the plane-section assumption of the wall
then it results in no floor rotation but only vertical shear bending, the node vertical displacement seems to be
deformation because the floor slab is thin and usually relevant to the inter-story displacement (see Figure 9).
treated as no stiffness in the direction of out floor plane, However, in this case the node rotation can also

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 Calculation Methods for Inter-Story Drifts of Building Structures

Z ∆
θ2 = 0

θ2

d1 θ1 = 0
θ
d2

L
θ2
Figure 8. Deformation induced by node vertical displacement in
H
frame structure θ1

Wall d2 − d1
θ1 =
d1 L
θ1 θ1
d2

L Figure 10. Inter-story drift angles

Figure 9. Deformation induced by node vertical displacement in

the wall structure
represent the effect of the vertical displacement on the
inter-story displacement. Thus, for pure wall structures,
the generalized shear drift angle equals to the floor
rotation (Figure 9), which is also the harmful drift angle
calculated by the tangent method (Figure 2).
3. INTER-STORY AVERAGE SHEAR DRIFT
AND AVERAGE ROTATION
3.1. Definitions
To deep understand the harmful inter-story drift, the
concepts of the inter-story average shear drift and the
inter-story average rotation are proposed, which can be
applied to all the shear-type, flexural-type and shear-
flexural-type structures. As shown in Figure 10, the
inter-story average shear drift angle is defined, based on
flexural-shear-type multi-degree of freedom system, as
(θ − θ1 ) + (θ − θ 2 ) θ +θ
θS = =θ − 1 2
2 2
∆ the rotation at those nodes with effective connection
θ=
H
where θ is the inter-story horizontal drift angle; θ1 and
θ2 are the average rotation angles for the superior and
inferior floor, respectively; ∆ is the inter-story
horizontal displacement; H is the story height. The inter-
story average shear drift angle, based on the concept of
the average value, is so defined to represent the average
level of the relative shear deformation in a story (i.e., the
space between two consecutive floors). Meanwhile, the
inter-story total rotation drift angle can be easily
obtained by
θR = θ2 − θ1 (12)
which represent the total rotation level in a whole story.
Similarly, based on the concept of the average value, the
inter-story average rotation angle is defined as
θ 2 − θ1
θR = (13)
2
As shown in Figure 11, θ R represents the average
level of the inter-story rotation, with smaller rotation in
the lower part and larger rotation in the upper part. It is
different from θR and both of them make sense.
To calculate the floor rotation angles of θ1 and θ2,
there are some important aspects to emphasize. The
(10)
inter-story rotation depends on the definition of the
rotation angle of the story-relevant superior and inferior
floors. The floor rotation angle is found as the average of
(11) elements between the superior and inferior floor levels
(Figure 12). Here, the effective connection element is the
flexural element (bending and shear element) that
connects the superior floor to the inferior floor. Note that
the tension/compression only link element is exempted
from the effective connection elements, because it has no
contribution to the inter-story rotation (Figure 13).

740 Advances in Structural Engineering Vol. 17 No. 5 2014

Jian Cai, Guobin Bu, Chun Yang, Qingjun Chen and Zhiliang Zuo

So far structural researchers and specialists define the

floor rotation by node vertical displacement as shown in
Figure 14, by drawing a straight line in energy
equivalence (Fu 2008). This definition is based on the
θ2 rigid floor assumption out of the floor plane (in the
vertical direction). Obviously such assumption is totally
not acceptable, because the floor rotation must be
accompanied by the rotation of the structural nodes with
Up
relevant effective connection elements, as show in
pe
rp
Av Figure 12. If the node has no rotation but only vertical
ar
tr
er
ag displacement, then it results in no floor rotation but only
ot
at
e
ro
io n
ta
tio
vertical shear deformation because of floor slab is thin
Lo n and is usually treated as no stiffness in the direction of
we
rp
art
rot
out floor plane, as show in Figure 8. This explanation is
ati the same as relative description in section 2.4.
on
_
3.2. Validation
_ and Relationships among θ~ , θS
θ1 and θR
To evaluate the effectiveness of the above definitions,
three typical cases are considered as following: (1) Pure
Figure 11. Inter-story rotation rotation with no relative shear deformation; (2)
Horizontal displacement with no internal deformation;
and (3) Deformation with no horizontal –
displacement
–
∆ (Figure 15). As shown in the figure, θ s, θR and θs for
θ 2l θ2 θ 2i each case are calculated and listed in the bottom of the
figure, which completely conform to the actual
deformation. Thus, it is reasonable to introduce such
θ definitions to better understand the structural
deformation mechanism.
H By extending the tangent method for flexural-type
structure (see Figure 2), the inter-story harmful drift angle
of the flexural-shear-type structure can be defined as
θ ~
θ = θ − θ1 (14)
θ 1l θ1 θ1j Add θ S to θ R , Eqn 15 can be obtained as

Figure 12. Floor rotation  θ +θ θ +θ

θ S + θ R =  θ − 1 2  + 2 1 = θ − θ1 = θ% (15)
 2  2
~ _ _
n3 n6 n9 which implies that_ θ is simply
_ the sum of θ S and θ R.
7F
Thus, by defining θ S and θ R, more specified information
n2 n5
n8 Link element on inter-story deformation (i.e., inter-story average
h6 shear drift and inter-story average rotation) can be
n1 n4 n7 obtained. These definitions are derived based on
6F
flexural-shear-type structures. However, they are also
applicable to the shear-type and flexural-type structures.
h5
Compared to the methods described in section 2, this
definition can also be used in dynamic analysis as it
5F
considered the difference of rotation between the
superior and inferior floor. In addition, the concept of
inter-story rotation represents the structural overturning,
which can also be considered as an indicator for
Figure 13. Link element structural behavior judgment in future work.

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 Calculation Methods for Inter-Story Drifts of Building Structures

d1 M
di θ

d2
Ni

M .θ = ∑Ni .di , where Ni, di = axial force and deformation of i- th vertical element
Figure 14. Floor rotation by energy equivalence method

∆ ∆
θ2 = θ ∆= 0
θ 2 = 2θ M θ2 = θ

θ θ θ
θ

H
H V=0 H V=0

θ θ θ

θ1 = θ θ1 = θ
M θ1 = 0

_ _ _ _ _ _
θ s = 0, θR = 0, θ R = 0 θ θ
θ s = 0, θR = 2θ , θ R = 0 θ s = − ,θR = θ , θ R = − (Blue)
2 2
_ _
θ s = − θ , θR = 0, θ R = 0 (Red)

Figure 15. Validation of inter-story drift definitions

3.3. Numeral Example
~ _
In
_ order to illustrate the relationships among θ , θ S and
θ R and examine the former three methods on calculating
the harmful drift described above, a simple 10-story
shear wall model is analysed employing structural
static/dynamic analysis program CANNY (Li 2010).
For brevity, the shear wall structure is established as a
simplified plane model (Figure 16). The wall elements
are modelled based on prescribed force-displacement
relationships and structural parameters are listed in
Table 1. Besides, each wall is controlled by four nodes
and each node weight is set to be 125 kN. Mode analysis
is conducted and the first vibration period is 0.55
second. The static fixed load analysis and dynamic time
history analysis are conducted.
In Static fixed load analysis, the equivalent earthquake
lateral loads applied on each floor are set to be 12 kN,
along the positive global X direction. The harmful drifts
~
θ obtained from different methods are compared in
~
Figure 17. As shown in the figure, θ calculated by all the
methods is much smaller than the total inter-story drift
angle, with larger deformation in lower stories and
smaller deformation in higher stories. It implies that the
upper story drifts are mainly caused by the rigid body
rotation of the inferior floor, which conforms to the
~
practical deformation. θ by the tangent method is much
~
approach to θ by the fixing floor method, which is
considered as a relatively accurate but much complicated
~
approach. However, θ by the secant method is larger in
comparison to another two methods, especially in lower
stories. It should be noted that in this pure wall case, the
~
generalized shear drift angle γ of wall equals to θ by the
tangent method as both of them equals to the floor
rotation, which is also explained in section 2.4 (see Figure
2 and Figure 8). Meanwhile, the average shear drift
–
component θ S is small and the average rotation

742 Advances in Structural Engineering Vol. 17 No. 5 2014

Jian Cai, Guobin Bu, Chun Yang, Qingjun Chen and Zhiliang Zuo

10 Total displacement angle θ

∼
θ by secont method
9 ∼
θ by tangent method or
8 γ of genaralized shear drift angle
by fixing floor method _
7
_ θs
Inter-story average shear drift angle
6 Inter-story average rotation angle θR

Story
5
4
2
3
1
0.000 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.010 0.012
9@3 m Drift angle (rad)

Figure 17. Drift angle comparison for static fixed load analysis

10 θ
~
9 θ
8
7
6
Story

5
4
3
4m

2
1
5m 0.0000 0.0005 0.0010 0.0015 0.0020
Drift angle (rad)
Figure 16. Shear wall model
Figure 18. Drift angle distribution in Deng (2008)’s study

~
component θ R is approaching to θ̃. However, the sum of
– – –
θ S and θ R exactly equals to θ by the tangent method,
which conforms to Eqn 15. In addition, the relationship
between the total drift and the harmful drift of a 10 story
reinforced concrete wall structure in Deng (2008)’s study
is presented in Figure 18. Because the structural
information is not completely provided, the comparison
cannot be directly conducted. However, it can be seen
from Figure 17 and Figure 18 that the change trends
between the total drift and the harmful drift are
completely the same, which implies the correctness of
definitions in this study.In dynamic analysis, the most
commonly-used earthquake ground motion acceleration
record (i.e., El Centro 1940, North-South component) are
excited to the example shear wall model. The integration
time interval is set to be 0.005 second by subdividing
earthquake time interval (0.02 second) into 4 steps. The
damping ratio is assumed to be 0.05. The peak value of θ,

Table 1. Stiffness and strength of wall element for each story

Flexural Shear Axial

Crack Yield Crack Yield

Stiffness strength strength Stiffness strength strength Stiffness Strength
Story (kN. m2) (kN. m) (kN. m) (kN) (kN) (kN) (kN) (kN)
1-3 1.15 × 108 550 2400 1.35 × 107 1000 1400 3.5 × 107 29000
4-6 9.22 × 107 500 1920 1.08 × 107 800 1100 2.8 × 107 24000
7-10 8.32 × 107 450 1540 8.64 × 106 600 900 2.3 × 107 20000

Advances in Structural Engineering Vol. 17 No. 5 2014 743


10
Negative Positive
9
θ_ θ_
8 θ_s θ_s
θR θR
7 The fixing floor method can directly calculate the
6 harmful inter-story drift, but it is difficult for
Story
5
4
3 unreasonableness are evaluated. It demonstrates that the
2 definition of region rotation is not comprehensively
1 considered when calculating the region harmful
−0.015 −0.010 −0.005 −0.000 0.005 0.010
Drift angle (rad)
Figure 19. Drift angle comparison for dynamic time history
analysis
– –
θ S and θ R in each story during time history analysis are
compared in Figure 19. As shown in the figure, θ is
– –
greatly larger than θ R , and θ S is relatively small. The
Inter-story average rotations are generally larger in lower
stories than those in upper stories. This change trend is
quite similar to that of the static case in Figure 18.
However, there would be some exceptions due to the
–
randomness of earthquake excitations (e.g., θ R in the 2-th
and 3-th story is relatively smaller than that in 4-th story).
Note that this analysis is based on simplified plane
model due to the complexity of calculating the average
drift angle value for each story. These relationships should
be further studied based on three dimensional analysis and
the torsion drift also needs to be considered in future work.
In addition, the present work also focuses on the structural
harmful drift in the range of elastic behaviour, compared
with similar studies. The inelastic behaviour on harmful
drift is important but very complicated, which need to be
deep investigated in future work.
4. CONCLUSIONS
The current methods for calculating the inter-story
harmful drift are evaluated, and the advantages as well
as shortcomings of these methods are compared.
Concepts of the inter-story average shear drift, inter-
story average rotation are proposed and examined.
The current methods for calculating harmful drift are
concluded as the secant method, tangent method, fixing
floor method and generalized shear deformation of
region method, respectively. It shows the idea in the
secant method that the harmless inter-story drift should
be subtracted from total inter-story drift, but it may
make some errors by assuming the inferior floor rotation
to be a secant angle. To reduce these errors, the secant
744
Calculation Methods for Inter-Story Drifts of Building Structures
angle is replaced by the tangent angle in the tangent
method, which seems to be much reasonable. However,
the relationship between the global inter-story harmful
drift and local vertical member drift needs to be studied.
engineering application and impossible for dynamic
analysis. Meanwhile, the generalized shear deformation
of region is introduced and its advantages and
0.015
displacement.
Concepts of the inter-story average shear drift and
inter-story average rotation are proposed and examined.
The relationships among these proposed drifts and the
harmful drift are derived. Based on the static and
dynamic analysis of a simplified shear wall model, the
proposed drifts are compared to the harmful drift
calculated by the current methods. It proves that the
proposed drifts are reasonable and can provide much
more detailed information for structural deformation
analysis. Future work should be extended to three
dimensional analysis and the torsion drift should be
included.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge the financial support by
National Natural Science Foundation of China
(50878087), State Key Lab of Subtropical Building
Science, South China University of Technology
(2009ZC18, x2d1c7130210; 2013ZC19), Natural
Science Foundation of Hunan Province of China
(12JJ6047), and Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (2012ZB0025).
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