NONLINEAR MODELS FOR THE SEISMIC ANALYSIS OF REINFORCED CONCRETE BUILDINGS - A PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT MODELS IN NONLINEAR STATIC AND DYNAMIC ANALYSIS

Being fact that both old and recently designed building structures are well expected to exhibit a nonlinear seismic response when subjected to medium-high intensity earthquakes, only simple linear methods have effectively been used in design offices. Nowadays, however, as a result of the improvement of scientific knowledge, the number of real experiments and the exponential progress of computational skills, nonlinear modelling and analysis have gradually been brought to a more promising level. A wide range of modelling alternatives developed over the years is hence at designers' disposal for the seismic assessment of engineering structures. Therefore, it was intended with this study to use some of these models to an existing structure and evaluate their precision in nonlinear static and dynamic analyses, with the use of two advanced computer programs: SAP2000 and SeismoStruct. The different models focus on the flexural mechanism with both lumped and distributed plasticity element models. In order to appraise the reliability and feasibility of each alternative, the programs capabilities and the amount of labour and time requirement for modelling and analyses were also discussed.