Application of pushover procedures for the seismic analysis of plan-asymmetric buildings

This paper illustrates an investigation on the effectiveness of pushover procedures for plan-asymmetric buildings. In particular the attention was concentrated on the application of the modal pushover analysis (MPA). An extensive numerical study was performed considering RC spatial frames with different values of eccentricity between center of mass and center of stiffness and of moment of inertia of floor mass. The results of pushover analyses were compared with those of a series of non-linear dynamic analyses which were carried out considering different earthquake records. The response parameters examined in the comparison were top displacement at the center of mass and roof rotation as well as story displacement and inter-story drift of the frames parallel to the direction of the seismic action. The results showed a good performance of the MPA procedure also for the structures characterized by large values of eccentricity and of moment of inertia of floor mass.