Simple Model for Earthquake Response Studies of Torsionally Coupled Buildings

Simple models defined only in terms of overall system properties are developed to approximate the response of one-story buildings. A system with several resisting elements may be idealized as a single element system with the following properties: several parameters in the linearly elastic range of behavior are the same as for the multi-element system; and a single yield surface, circular in the normalized coordiante system, with yield shear and torque defined in terms of the corresponding properties of the multi-element system. The response of a single-element system defined in this manner is approximately representative of the inelastic response of a large class of multi-element systems. Consequently, the variety of building properties and plan layouts encountered in practice, which are too numerous for explicit consideration in studies of earthquake response ot torsionally coupled buildings, can be effectively handled by a single element model.