Earthquake responses of RC moment frames subjected to near-fault ground motions

There are three objectives in this paper. The first objective is to compare the dynamic behaviour of a reinforced concrete building structure subjecte d to near-fault and far-field ground motions. A twelve-storey and a five-st orey reinforced concrete building with moment resisting frames were selecte d in this study. The Chi-Chi earthquake was selected as a first set in this study to test near-fault earthquake characteristics. Further, another eart hquake record of an event at the same site was selected to test the far-fie ld earthquake characteristics for comparison. Through nonlinear time histor y analyses, the results show that the near-fault earthquake results in much more damage than the far-field earthquake. The second objective of this pa per is to compare the predictions for ductility demand by the nonlinear tim e history analyses with those obtained by the pushover analysis procedure. The third objective is to explore the parameters that will more significant ly affect the the building structure's dynamic response characteristics of base shear reduction and displacement amplification. Copyright (C) 2001 Joh n Wiley & Sons, Ltd.