A consecutive modal pushover procedure for nonlinear static analysis of one-way unsymmetric-plan tall building structures

Seismic responses of unsymmetric-plan tall buildings are substantially influenced by the effects of higher modes and torsion. Considering these effects, in this article, the consecutive modal pushover (CMP) procedure is extended to estimate the seismic demands of one-way unsymmetric-plan tall buildings. The procedure uses multi-stage and classical single-stage pushover analyses and benefits from the elastic modal properties of the structure. Both lateral forces and torsional moments obtained from modal analysis are used in the multi-stage pushover analysis. The seismic demands are obtained by enveloping the peak inelastic responses resulting from the multi-stage and single-stage pushover analyses. To verify and appraise the procedure, it is applied to the 10, 15, and 20-storey one-way unsymmetric-plan buildings including systems with different degrees of coupling between the lateral displacements and torsional rotations, i.e. torsionally-stiff (TS), torsionally-similarly-stiff (TSS) and torsionally-flexible (TF) systems. The modal pushover analysis (MPA) procedure is implemented for the purpose of comparison as well. The results from the approximate pushover procedures are compared with the results obtained by the nonlinear response history analysis (NL-RHA). It is demonstrated that the CMP procedure is able to take into account the higher mode influences as well as amplification or de-amplification of seismic displacements at the flexible and stiff edges of unsymmetric-plan tall buildings. The extended procedure can predict to a reasonable accuracy the peak inelastic responses, such as displacements and storey drifts. The CMP procedure represents an important improvement in estimating the plastic rotations of hinges at both flexible and stiff sides of unsymmetric-plan tall buildings in comparison with the MPA procedure.