ETS CAMINOS, CANALES Y PUERTOS DE BARCELONA

Diseo y Evaluacin Ssmica de Estructuras

INTRODUCTION TO
STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS
Part I SDOF systems
Luca Pel
Universidad Politcnica de Catalunya
luca.pela@upc.edu

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
EQUATION OF MOTION
2.

FREE VIBRATION OF SDOF SYSTEMS

SYSTEM WITH/WITHOUT DAMPING

3.

RESPONSE OF SDOF SYSTEMS TO HARMONIC EXCITATIONS

SYSTEM WITH/WITHOUT DAMPING

4.

RESPONSE OF SDOF SYSTEMS TO ARBITRARY EXCITATIONS

DUHAMELS INTEGRAL

5.

RESPONSE OF SDOF SYSTEMS TO EARTHQUAKES

RESPONSE SPECTRUM
ELASTIC AND DESIGN RESPONSE SPECTRA (EC8)
BEHAVIOUR FACTOR

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

1. INTRODUCTION
DEGREE OF FREEDOM
- The representation of the displacements of a given system with distributed
mass in terms of a finite number of displacements allows to greatly simply
the dynamic problem because inertial forces would develop only at these
points.
- The number of displacement components that must be taken into account to
represent the effects of all significant inertial forces of a system is known as the
number of degrees of freedom of the system (DOF).

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

MASS-SPRING-DAMPER SYSTEM
- The system can be seen as the combination of three components: the
stiffness component, the damping component and the mass component.

p (t ) = f s + f d + f I

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

EQUATION OF MOTION

Representation of a SDOF system (mass-spring-damper system):

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

2. FREE VIBRATION OF SDOF SYSTEMS

Free vibration:
vibration (caused by a disturbance) without any external dynamic excitation
(p(t)=0).

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Natural period of vibration, natural frequency and natural circular frequency:

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

SYSTEM WITHOUT DAMPING

Analytical solution of the differential equation:

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

SYSTEM WITH DAMPING

The solution of the differential equation can be expressed as

c
c damping
=
ccr 2mn ratio

>1 overdamped systems (no oscillation)

=1 critically damped systems (no oscillation)
<1 underdamped systems (oscillation)

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

The damping ratio of structures of interest (buildings, bridges, dams, etc.)

is less than 0.10 (or 10%) underdamped systems

c
c
=
ccr 2mn

>1 overdamped systems (no oscillation)

=1 critically damped systems (no oscillation)
<1 underdamped systems (oscillation)

Frequency of damped vibration D

(damping lowers the frequency):

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Typical values of damping ratio in civil engineering structures:

Steel structures with welded joints or bolted

joints with friction connections
Prestressed reinforced concrete
Uncracked reinforced concrete

2 % - 3%

Cracked reinforced concrete

3% - 5%

Steel structures with bolted joints with

bearing connections
Wood structures

5% - 7%

Therefore, in civil engineering structures normally

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

3. RESPONSE OF SDOF SYSTEMS TO HARMONIC EXCITATIONS

The equation of motion is now given by:

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

3. RESPONSE OF SDOF SYSTEMS TO HARMONIC EXCITATIONS

SYSTEM WITHOUT DAMPING

The sin t term gives

an oscillation at the
exciting frequency:
forced or steadystate vibration.

r = 0.2

The sin n t and cos n t

terms give an
oscillation at the
systems frequency
transient
vibration.

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Resonant frequency is the forcing frequency at which the dynamic

amplification of the displacement is maximum.
For an undamped system (=0) is the natural frequency n .

Video: SDOF Resonance Vibration Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV_UuzEznHs
Video: Tacoma Bridge collapse due to resonance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mclp9QmCGs

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

SYSTEM WITH DAMPING

The transient
response
decays
exponentially
with time.
After some time
the steady-state
response
dominates.

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

4. RESPONSE OF SDOF SYSTEMS TO ARBITRARY EXCITATIONS

In the differential equation of motion,
p(t) is an arbitrary deterministic excitation:

p(t) can be interpreted as a sequence of impulses of infinitesimal duration and

the response of the system to p(t) will be the sum of the responses to individual
impulses (this hypothesis limits this procedure to linear elastic systems).

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

The response of the system at time t is the sum of the responses to all impulses
up to that time.

magnitude

unit
impulse
response

convolution integral

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

A unit impulse causes free vibration to SDOF systems due to the initial
displacement and velocity. The response is given by:

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Considering the unit impulse response function, the Duhamels integral is

used to sum the responses to all impulses.

The Duhamels integral is valid only for linear systems because it is based on
the principle of superposition.
The evaluation of the integral can be based on analytical (if p is a simple
function) or numerical methods (if p is a complicated function).

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

TIME-STEPPING METHODS
The analytical solution is usually not possible if the excitation varies arbitrarily
with time or if the system is non-linear. The above problems can be solved by
numerical time-stepping methods for integration of differential equations.

The response is determined at the discrete time instants ti (time i). All values are
assumed to be known at time i. The numerical procedures allow to determine
the response quantities at the time ti+1 satisfying the equation

The numerical procedures to be implemented can be divided into 2 main

categories: explicit methods (e.g. Central difference method) and implicit
methods (e.g. Newmarks method).

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

NEWMARKS METHOD
The Newmarks method assumes a variation of the acceleration over the time
step [ ti ; ti+1 ].
This variation is controlled by the parameters and which also control the
stability and accuracy of the method. Typically:
The equations of the Newmarks method read

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

4. RESPONSE OF SDOF SYSTEMS TO EARTHQUAKES

The equation of motion of a SDOF system subjected to an earthquake reads

dividing by m and substituting c and k

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

RESPONSE SPECTRUM
The peak response of all possible linear SDOF systems to a given earthquake
can be represented in a response spectrum.

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

RESPONSE SPECTRUM
The plot of the spectral displacement Sd against the period Tn provides the
displacement response spectrum.
The plot of the spectral acceleration Sa against the period Tn provides the
acceleration response spectrum.

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

The maximum internal (elastic) force can be computed by means of Sd

By expressing k in terms of the mass m, one obtains

It is also possible to define a pseudo-spectral velocity in the form

There is a direct relationship among pseudo-spectral acceleration, pseudospectral velocity and real spectral displacement:

In practice, the pseudo-spectral velocity and pseudo-spectral acceleration are

used instead of the real spectral velocity an spectral acceleration, and no
reference is made to the pseudo characteristic.

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Derivation of Response Spectra from real recordings:

velocity
response spectrum
displacement
response spectrum

acceleration
response spectrum

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

The construction of the response spectrum involves the following steps:

1. Definition of the ground acceleration

2. Selection of the parameters Tn and of the SDOF system
3. Computation of the response u(t) of the system due to the ground motion
(e.g. using the Duhamel integral or a numerical method)
4. Determination of the peak value of the response Sd
5. Computation of Sv and Sa as a function of Sd
6. Repetition of steps 2 to 5 for different values of Tn and
7. Plotting of the response spectrum

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

ELASTIC RESPONSE SPECTRUM

The elastic response spectrum it is intended for the design of new structures or
for the seismic safety evaluation of existing structures, to resist future
earthquakes. The definition of the elastic design spectrum parameters should
be based on a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis.
EC8
spectrum

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Equations for each spectral branch of the Eurocode 8 elastic response

spectrum:

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Parameters of the Eurocode 8 elastic response spectrum:

Se(T) : elastic response spectrum
T : vibration period of a linear single-degree-of-freedom system
ag : design ground acceleration on type A ground
TB, TC e TD : limits of the spectral branches
S : soil factor
: damping correction factor

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Soil types:

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Type 1 elastic response spectrum (far-field earthquakes; Ms > 5.5)

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

Type 2 elastic response spectrum (near-field earthquakes; Ms < 5.5)

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

The short-period portion of the spectrum is dominated by the near-field

earthquake, the long-period portion of the spectrum is dominated by the far-field
earthquake.

ETCECCPB-UPC Introduction to Structural Dynamics

REFERENCES
Chopra A.K. Dynamics of Structures. Prentice Hall, 1995.

Petrini L.; Pinho R.; Calvi G. M. Criteri di progettazione antisismica degli edifici
(in Italian). IUSS Press, 2004.

EN 1998-1. Eurocode 8: Design of structures for earthquake resistance - Part 1:

General rules, seismic actions and rules for buildings.