Computational simulation of the seismic response of buildings with energy dissipating devices

In this work, the nonlinear dynamic response of RC buildings with energy dissipating devices is studied using advanced computational techniques. A fully geometric and constitutive nonlinear model is used for describing the dynamic behavior of structures. The equations of motion are expressed in terms of cross sectional forces and strains and its weak form is solved using the displacement based finite element method. A suitable version of Newmark's scheme is used in updating the kinematics variables in a classical Newton type iterative scheme. Material points of the cross section are assumed to be composed of several simple materials with their own constitutive laws. The mixing theory is used to treat the resulting composite. A specific finite element based on the beam theory is proposed for the dissipators including constitutive relations. Finally, several numerical tests are carried out to validate the proposed model.