STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING

Lecture 3

Engr. Danish Saeed

Lecturer
Department of Civil Engineering
KFUEIT, RYK
Introduction to Structural Dynamics and
Earthquake Engineering
Structural Dynamics
• Structural dynamics concerns the analysis, by theoretical and/or
experimental means, of the interactions of time-dependent loads
and/or deformations externally applied to a structure or structural
element and the internal stress and displacement response.
Simple Structures
• Lets start our study of structural dynamics with “simple structures”
such as the pergola shown in Fig. 3.1 and the elevated water tank of
Fig. 3.2 on next slide.
• We call these structures simple because they can be idealized as a
concentrated or lumped mass m supported by a massless structure
with stiffness k in the lateral direction.
Simple Structures

Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2

Simple Structures
• Such an idealization is appropriate for this pergola with a heavy
concrete roof supported by light-steel-pipe columns, which can be
assumed as massless.
• The concrete roof is very stiff and the flexibility of the structure in
lateral (or horizontal) motion is provided entirely by the columns.
• The idealized system is shown in Fig. 3.3 with a pair of columns
supporting the tributary length of the concrete roof.
Simple Structures
• This system has a lumped mass m
equal to the mass of the roof shown,
and its lateral stiffness k is equal to the
sum of the stiffnesses of individual
pipe columns.

Figure 3.3
Simple Structures
• A similar idealization, shown in Fig. 3.4, is
appropriate for the tank when it is full of water.
• It is a lumped mass m supported by a relatively
light tower that can be assumed as massless.
• The cantilever tower supporting the water tank
provides lateral stiffness k to the structure.

Figure 3.4
Simple Structures
• assume that the lateral motion of these structures is small in the sense
that the supporting structures deform within their linear elastic limit.
• The differential equation governing the lateral displacement u(t) of
these idealized structures without any external excitation—applied
force or ground motion—is
Simple Structures
• An over dot denotes differentiation with respect to time; thus u̇
denotes the velocity of the mass and ü its acceleration.
• The solution of this equation, to be discussed in forthcoming lectures,
will show that if the mass of the idealized systems of figures 1.3 and
1.4 is displaced through some initial displacement u(0), then released
and permitted to vibrate freely, the structure will oscillate or vibrate
back and forth about its initial equilibrium position.
Simple Structures
• As shown in Fig. 3.5 on next slide, the same maximum displacement
occurs oscillation after oscillation; these oscillations continue forever
and these idealized systems would never come to rest.
• This is unrealistic, of course.
• Intuition suggests that if the roof of the pergola or the top of the water
tank were pulled laterally by a rope and the rope were suddenly cut,
the structure would oscillate with ever-decreasing amplitude and
eventually come to rest.
 Simple Structures

Figure 3.5: (a) Idealized pergola; (b) idealized

water tank; (c) free vibration due to initial
displacement.
Simple Structures
• Some experiments were performed on laboratory models of one-story
frames, and measured records of their free vibration response are
presented in figure 3.6 on next slide.
• As expected, the motion of these model structures decays with time.
• The process by which vibration steadily diminishes in amplitude is
called damping.
• The kinetic energy and strain energy of the vibrating system are
dissipated by various damping mechanisms that we shall study later.
Simple Structures

Figure 3.6
Simple Structures
• So, an energy-dissipating mechanism should be included in the
structural idealization in order to incorporate the feature of decaying
motion observed during free vibration tests of a structure.
Single Degree of Freedom System (SDOF)
• Consider the system shown in figure 3.7

Figure 3.7: Single-degree-of-freedom system: (a) applied force p(t); (b) earthquake-
induced ground motion.
Single Degree of Freedom System (SDOF)
• It consists of a mass m concentrated at the roof level, a massless
frame that provides stiffness to the system, and a viscous damper
(also known as a dashpot) that dissipates vibrational energy of the
system.
• The beam and columns are assumed to be inextensible axially.
• This system may be considered as an idealization of a one-story
structure.
Single Degree of Freedom System (SDOF)
• Each structural member (beam, column, wall, etc.) of the actual
structure contributes to the inertial (mass), elastic (stiffness or
flexibility), and energy dissipation (damping) properties of the
structure.
• In the idealized system, however, each of these properties is
concentrated in three separate, pure components: mass component,
stiffness component, and damping component.
Single Degree of Freedom System (SDOF)
• The number of independent displacements required to define the
displaced positions of all the masses relative to their original position
is called the number of degrees of freedom (DOFs) for dynamic
analysis.
• Consider the one-story frame of Fig. 3.7, constrained to move only in
the direction of the excitation.
• The static analysis problem has to be formulated with three DOFs—
lateral displacement and two joint rotations—to determine the lateral
stiffness of the frame
Single Degree of Freedom System (SDOF)
• In contrast, the structure has only one DOF— lateral displacement—
for dynamic analysis if it is idealized with mass concentrated at one
location, typically the roof level.
• Thus we call this a single-degree-of-freedom (SDF) system.
• Two types of dynamic excitation will be considered: (1) external
force p(t) in the lateral direction (Fig. 3.7a), and (2) earthquake-
induced ground motion ug(t).