3D Pushover Methods for Irregular RC Structures

In the present study, a pushover procedure for 3D frame structures is proposed. A new way to define a set of horizontal force and torque distributions to apply at the floor levels is proposed here. For predicting the behaviour of irregular structures in the worst configurations, more than one pushover analyses must be performed. The proposed method is validated by a consistent comparison of results from static and dynamic analyses in terms of different response parameters, such as displacements, rotations, floor shears and floor torques. Starting from the linear analysis, the pro-cedure is subsequently extended to nonlinear cases. The results confirm the effec-tiveness of the proposed procedure to predict the structural behaviour in the most dangerous configurations.