ALTERNATIVE METHOD ON DETERMINING OF PRINCIPAL AXIS AND EXTREME ELEMENT FORCES OF PLAN IRREGULAR BUILDING STRUCTURES

Ir. Sugia Mulyana *)

Abstract
This paper proposes an analytical method in analyzing principal axes and lateral loading direction resulting in maximum response of lateral load-resisting elements of building structures with plan irregularity. The Indonesian Seismic Code SNI 03-1726-2002 clause A.5.8.1 currently adopts the conventional trial and error method to find the principal axes and loading direction resulting in maximum response of the lateral load-resisting elements. The Plan Irregularity is a condition when the plan arrangement of lateral load resisting elements providing stiffness in one direction of a building are not perpendicular to those providing stiffness in other direction, hence the structures Principal Axes directions may not be parallel with the directions of the lateral load resisting elements. It is very important to determine the Principal Axes directions because lateral loading in those directions would result in maximum values of lateral displacement and drift ratio. Lateral forces in each lateral force-resisting element would achieve their maximum values when the lateral loading is applied in a particular direction. This direction is unique for each lateral force-resisting element. This paper proposes a special load combination that ensures every lateral force-resisting element would reach its maximum forces. The procedure applies static lateral loading at the center of rigidity of rigid diaphragms in directions parallel to the global axes of the building. The results are combined using Square Root of Sum of Squares (SRSS) combination rule to determine the maximum response of the lateral load resisting elements. Keywords: plan irregularity, principal axes, lateral load-resisting elements, maximum forces.

*)

Principal, PT Rekacipta Kinematika Consulting Engineers. Lecturer, Institute Sains & Teknologi Nasional Jakarta.

1.

INTRODUCTION

Building Codes, especially seismic design codes, always recommend keeping a building structure as simple as regular as possible to optimize construction economy and minimize construction difficulties. However, recent design technology and innovations have pushed building design to a new era. It is now quite often Structural Engineers are faced with buildings that are very irregular from the structural point of view. One of the irregularities is the Plan Irregularity, i.e. when the lateral load resisting elements (sub-systems) providing stiffness in one direction of a building are not perpendicular to those providing stiffness in other direction. Figure 1.1 provides an illustration of a building with Plan Irregularity. The Plan Irregularity may not affect the gravity load analysis, however, it shall affect the lateral load analysis (e.g. wind, earthquake) very significantly thus requires more attention from the Structural Engineers.

Figure 1.1 Structural Engineers analyzing lateral load behaviour of an irregular structure such as shown in Figure 1.1 would face the following issues: 1. How to determine the Principal Axes directions of the structure? This necessary because maximum values of lateral displacements and drift ratios due to lateral loading shall occur in those directions. Lateral loading applied in other directions may result in unconservative displacements and drift ratios in the lateral loadresisting elements, unless when the lateral stiffnesses of any perpendicular directions are equal. 2. How to determine direction of the applied lateral loading resulting in maximum forces in the lateral load resisting elements (e.g. frames, shear walls, bracing, etc.). This direction may or may not be the same as the direction of the lateral load-resisting element in question. Here is the recommendation of the Indonesian Seismic Design Code (SNI 03-1726-2002) clause A.5.8.1 on Principal Axes of Irregular Buildings: on the regular building where the structure are formed by sub-systems which are perpendicular among other and parallel with the global axes, the principal direction of the earthquake loads is parallel with that global axes. However, for the irregular building structure, mostly the direction of the principal axes could not be determined in advance. In this case, the principal direction of earthquake loads shall be calculated using trial & error for a number of possibilities. Hence, it is quite often the Structural Engineer has to perform quite a number of structural analyses of the building, applying static lateral loads in incremental direction angles, e.g. every 5 or 10 degrees to obtain the maximum results using a trial and error method. This paper proposes an analytical method to determine Principal Axes and maximum element forces based on lateral displacement results from three-dimensional structure analysis with lateral loading applied to centre of rigidity of the rigid diaphragm in global axes directions. Summary of this analytical method is presented herewith.

2.

BUILDING LATERAL STIFFNESS

This procedure models the building lateral stiffness by lumping individual stiffnesses of lateral load-resisting elements into a group of springs representing the lateral load-resisting elements stiffness.

2.1

Stiffness of Single-Storey Structure

Stiffnesses of the lateral load-resisting elements in a single-storey structure are modelled as springs as illustrated in the figure 2.1 below.

Figure 2.1 The lateral stiffness of structure shown in figure 2.1 is: K = P / . . (2-1)

2.2

Stiffness of Multi-Storey Structure

a) Figure 2.2.

b)

c)

d)

e)

f)

g)

Models in either figures 2.2d and 2.2a can be used to calculate equivalent lateral stiffness of a multistorey structure. However, the Author prefers to use figure 2.2d since it allows to obtain the equivalent

stiffness with two analyses, while using figure 2.2a the number of analyses to obtain equivalent stiffness equals the number of storeys.

a) b) c) Figure 2.3. Stiffness calculation of storey-i using modelling principles of figure 2.2a.

a) b) c) Figure 2.4. Stiffness calculation of storey-i using modelling principles of figure 2.2d. The lateral stiffness for storey-i is then calculated as: Ki = P / i ..... (2-2)

Figure 2.5. Lateral stiffness model of multi-storey structure in figure 1.1 The lateral springs for each lateral force-resisting system are then translated to one point, and a rotational spring is added to model the in-plane rotational stiffness. The axial springs shall maintain its original orientation. Figure 2.6 shows the final modelling.

Figure 2.6. Final lateral stiffness model of building in figure 1.1.

3.

BUILDING CENTRE OF RIGIDITY

There are two accepted general procedures of obtaining center of rigidity of building with rigid diaphragm: 1. Centre of Rigidity = Shear Centre. 2. Centre of Rigidity = Centre of Rotation. The Shear Centre is often not applicable to determine the Centre of Rigidity. This paper adopts the Centre of Rotation method to obtain Centre of Rigidity, which from hereof will be referenced as C.O.R. The C.O.R. is obtained from rigid diaphragm displacement caused by applied unit torsional moment in the diaphragm plane. Figure 3.1 illustrates the kinematics.

Figure 3.1 Rigid diaphragm rotation due to unit diaphragm torsional moment (point O is at the C.O.R.). The coordinates of the Centre of Rigidity (C.O.R.) are obtained from triangle OII: yi X0 = Xi - -------- , xi Y0 = Yi + -------- ... (3-1)

................. (3-2)

4.

PRINCIPAL AXES

This paper proposes two general procedures of obtaining Principal Axes of building structure: 1. Using Spring Stiffness of the Lateral Load-Resisting Elements 2. Using Rigid Diaphragm Lateral Displacements.

4.1

Principal Axes Based on Lateral Spring Stiffness

As summarized in section 2 above, the structure shown in figure 1.1 then is represented by axial springs and then the principal axes can be determined as follows;

Figure 4.1 Lateral spring stiffness and C.O.R. Lateral load is applied to model shown in Figure 4.1 in incremental direction angle (0 to 360). The sum of all spring force components perpendicular to the loading direction would equal zero at one particular direction angle this angle is the direction angle of the Principal Axes. Hence, 2 Ki . sin(i) . cos(i)
i=1 n

tan(2) = ----------------------------------------- Ki . cos2(i) Ki . sin2(i)

i=1 i=1 n n

.................................... (4-1)

or, 2 Ixy tan(2) = ----------I y Ix where, Ixy = Ki . sin(i) . cos(i)

i=1 n

......................................(4-2)

.. (4.3)

Iy = Ki . cos2(i)
i=1

....... (4-4) . (4-5)

Ix = Ki . sin2(i)
i=1

The solution of equation (4-2) is: - ( Iy Ix ) + { ( Iy Ix )2 + 4 Ixy2 } tan(1) = --------------------------------------------2 Ixy - ( Iy Ix ) - { ( Iy Ix )2 + 4 Ixy2 } tan(2) = --------------------------------------------2 Ixy where 1 = and 2 = 1 + 90 (see figure 4.2). ................................... (4-6)

............................... (4-7)

Note that equations (4-1), (4-6) and (4-7) are similar to the formulaes for directions of principal axes of a general section. Hence, stiffness of structure shown in Figure 1.1 can be modelled as a pair of orthogonal Principal Springs as shown in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2. Principal Springs of a multi-storey building Using sums of all load components parallel to the applied load (refer to figure 4.1), stiffness of principal springs are obtained as: Kx = Iy . cos2(1) + Ix. Sin2(1) + 2 Ixy . sin(1) . cos (1) Ky = Iy . cos2(2) + Ix. Sin2(2) + 2 Ixy . sin(2) . cos (2) ..................... (4-8) ..................... (4-9)

Note that equations (4-8) and (4-9) are also similar to formulaes for principal axes of a general section.

4.2

Principal Axes From Diaphragm Displacements

Principal Axes of a building may also be obtained from rigid diaphragm displacements due to the following loading: 1. A lateral loading applied to the C.O.R. parallel with the X global axis. 2. A lateral loading applied to the C.O.R. parallel with the Y global axis.

Figure 4.3. A lateral load applied to COR, parallel with X Global Axis

Figure 4.4. A lateral load applied to COR, parallel with Y Global Axis The direction of Principal Axes is obtained by algebraic solving of the lateral displacement results of the rigid diaphragm C.O.R. (refer to figure 4.3 and 4.4): (yy - xx ) + {(yy - xx )2 + 4 . yx . xy } tan(1) = -----------------------------------------------------2 . yx (yy - xx ) - {(yy - xx )2 + 4 . yx . xy } tan(2) = -----------------------------------------------------2 . yx where 1 and 2 are the direction angles of the Principal Axes. This displacement procedure is simpler than the stiffness procedure (section 4.1) above, because it requires only the rigid diaphragm lateral displacement results readily available from most three-dimensional structural analysis program. The stiffness method of section 4.1 would require equivalent spring properties of every lateral component in the structure, which is not always readily available. . (4-10)

. (4-11)

5.

ENVELOPE OF RIGID DIAPHRAGM DISPLACEMENT

This section presents the envelope of rigid diaphragm lateral displacement at its C.O.R. caused by lateral loading in arbitrary directions. The direction and amplitude of the rigid diaphragm lateral displacement can be accurately calculated using displacements approach for Principal Axes as described in the previous sections. We have recognized two unique conditions for the diaphragm lateral displacement envelopes, i.e.: 1. Kx Ky : the building has different lateral stiffness in the directions of Principal Axes, and 2. Kx = Ky : the building has equal lateral stiffness in the directions of Principal Axes
5.1

Case 1: Kx Ky

Solving lateral displacements due to applied lateral load at C.O.R. from arbitrary angle (0 360), the resultant diaphragm lateral displacement envelope can be found. The resultant envelope would be an elliptical curve.

Figure 5.1. Building with unequal stiffness in the directions of Principal Axes (x / mx)2 + (y / my)2 = 1 where, x = mx . cos() y = my . sin() and, 2 = (x)2 + (y)2 my tan(1) = -------- . tan() mx
5.2

.............................................. (5-1) .............................. (5-2) .......................... (5-3)

............................................................................................................ (5-4) .............. (5-5)

Case 2: Kx = Ky

Solving lateral displacements due to applied lateral load at C.O.R. from arbitrary angle (0 360), the resultant diaphragm lateral displacement envelope can be found. The resultant envelope would be a circular curve where mx = my and x = . cos(), y = . sin().

(x)2 + (y)2 = 2 tan(1) = tan()

............................................................................................................ (5-6) ..................................... (5-7)

Figure 5.2. Building with equal stiffness in the directions of Principal Axes Equation 5-7 shows that if the principal springs stiffnesses are equal, all of directions become principal axes direction.

6.

MAXIMUM ELEMENT FORCES

This section presents the proposed formulaes to obtain maximum forces in lateral load-resisting elements with any angle i from the Principal Axes, due to lateral static load with arbitrary direction. This procedure would provide an analytical algebraic solution to the conventional trial and error procedure. This paper proposes two procedures to obtain maximum lateral load-resisting element forces: 1. Using lateral load applied in a direction angle, resulting in maximum force in the element. 2. Using Load Combination.

6.1

Lateral Load Applied in Direction Angle,

Using the rigid diaphragm lateral displacement envelope described in Section 5, we can derive a particular direction angle () of a lateral load causing spring Ki reaching its maximum forces (see Figure 6.1) with the following equations: - (my)2 .................................................. (6-1) tan()max = ------------ . tan ( i ) 2 (mx) (mx)2 . cos(i ) xmax = ----------------------------------------------------------..................... (6-2) [{mx . cos(i )}2 + {mx . sin(i )}2] ymax = my . {1 ( xmax/mx)2} i,max,max = {(ymax)2 + (ymax)2} .......................................................... (6-3) ................................................................. (6-4) ................................ (6-5)

i,max = [{mx . cos(i - )}2 + {my . sin(i - )}2}

Ri,max = Ki . i,max

........................................................................................... (6-6)

Figure 6.1. Lateral load causing maximum forces in element spring Ki If mx, my, i, and are known, then the possible maximum displacement of elements represented by spring Ki can be calculated. Hence, the maximum forces in the lateral-load-resisting-elements represented by spring Ki can also be found. However, this procedure requires a number of analyses - at least as many as the number of different the lateral load-resisting element directions - therefore in case of a significantly irregular structure, it may not be practical.

6.2

Load Combination

Using the same principles in obtaining rigid diaphragm lateral displacement envelope above, we can also obtain maximum forces in the lateral load-resisting elements in spring Ki using two basic lateral load cases: 1. Lateral load applied at C.O.R. parallel with X global axis. 2. Lateral load applied at C.O.R. parallel with Y global axis.
6.2.1 Lateral Load Parallel with X Global Axis

Using formulaes for the rigid diaphragm lateral displacement envelope, the X global axis component of the maximum response in spring Ki is (Figure 6.2): xx mx = ----------cos() yx my = ----------sin() - my tan(1x) = --------- . tan() mx ................................................................................... (6-7)

................................................................................... (6-8)

................................................................... (6-9) .. (6-10)

Px = [{mx' . cos()}2 + {- mx' . sin()}2]

i,x = mx' . cos () . cos(i ) - my' . sin () . sin(i ) Ri,x = Ki . i,x

.................... (6-11)

......................................................................................... (6-12)

Figure 6.2. Lateral load parallel with X global axis

6.2.2 If The Lateral Load is Applied Parallel with Y Global Axis

Using formulaes for the rigid diaphragm lateral displacement envelope, the Y global axis component of the maximum response in spring Ki is (Figure 6.3):

Figure 6.3. Lateral load parallel with Y global axis xy mx = ----------sin() ................................................................................. (6-13)

yy ................................................................................. (6-14) my = ----------cos() my ................................................................... (6-15) tan(1y) = -------- . cot() mx ............... (6-16) Py = [{mx' . sin ()}2 + {my' . cos ()}2] i,y = mx' . sin () . cos(i - ) + my' . cos() . sin(i - ) Ri,y = Ki . i,y .................... (6-17)

......................................................................................... (6-18)

6.2.3 Suggested Load Combination

The global X and Y direction components of the lateral load-resisting element forces would be used to obtain their resultant maximum forces. We shall combine the X and Y components (6-11) and (6-17) using the square root of sum of squares rule: (i,x)2 + (i,y)2 = {mx . cos(i - )}2 + {my . sin(i - )}2 .................... (6-19)

Note that equation (6-19) is equal to equation (6-5), hence the maximum forces in structural elements represented by spring Ki with direction angle i can be obtained simply by applying SRSS rule on static lateral loads applied in global X and Y directions. Rewriting equation (6-19) for maximum lateral displacement of spring Ki: i,max = (i,x)2 + (i,y)2 ................................................................................ (6-20)

Hence the maximum forces/reaction of spring Ki is, Ri,max = (Ri,x)2 + (Ri,y)2 ................................................................................ (6-21)

7.

CONCLUSION

The procedures proposed in this paper can be used as an alternative to the conventional trial and error method in finding the Principal Axes and maximum element forces of plan irregular structures. 1. Principal Axes can be determined using diaphragm lateral displacement due to static lateral load applied at the C.O.R. 2. Maximum forces in lateral load-resisting elements can be determined in one-time analysis simply using Square Root Sum of Squares (SRSS) rule on orthogonal lateral loads applied in global X and Y direction only. An ideal structure would have equal or nearly equal stiffness in both orthogonal directions, therefore the the maximum response of the lateral load-resisting elements would be mobilized with any direction of lateral loading. It was shown in section 5.2 where the response envelope has a circular shape. In such case, the Structural Engineer would not have to analyze the Principal Directions and simply use the SRSS combination rule to obtain maximum lateral displacement and drift ratio, and also maximum element forces. The above procedures, however, have the following limitations in their application: 1. The structures must have rigid diaphragms, hence this method may not be applicable for flexible diaphragm structures. Further study is recommended. 2. The structures are assumed linear elastic, hence this method may not be applicable for structures under inelastic condition e.g. for non-linear analysis. Further study is recommended.

8.

REFERENCES

1. ______ (2002), SNI 03-1726-2002: Tatacara Perencanaan Ketahanan Gempa Untuk Bangunan Gedung, Badan Sertifikasi Nasional. 2. ______ (1971), Steel Designers Manual, 4th Ed., Constructional Steel Research And Development Organisation. 3. Blume, J.A., Newmark, N.M. & Corning, L.H. (1961), Design of Multistorey Reinforced Concrete Buildings for Earthquake Motions, Portland Cement Association. 4. Council On Tall Buildings And Urban Habitat (1995), Structural Systems For Tall Buildings, McGraw-Hill International Editions. 5. Departemen Pekerjaan Umum (1987), Pedoman Perencanaan Ketahanan Gempa Untuk Rumah Dan Gedung, Yayasan Badan Penerbit PU. 6. ICBO (1997), 1997 Uniform Bulding Code, Volume 2, International Conference of Buildings Officials. 7. Muto, K. (1974), Aseismic Design Analysis of Buildings, Maruzen Company Ltd. 8. Schueller, W. (1983), Horizontal-Span Building Structures, John Wiley & Sons. 9. Schueller, W. (1977), High-rise Building Structures, John Wiley & Sons. 10. Smith, B.S. & Coull, A. (1991), Tall Building Structures : Analysis And Design, John Wiley & Sons.