NONLINEAR SEISMIC RESPONSE ANALYSIS OF REINFORCED CONCRETE FRAME-WALL STRUCTURES UNDER STRONG EARTHQUAKE MOTIONS —I. Theory and Approach

A method for analyzing the nonlinear seismic responses of R/C plane frame-wall structures subjected to strong earthquake motions is presented in this paper.The structure is idealized as an assemblage of prismatic members with two rigid zones at its ends.The effects of the interaction between axial force and bending moment in a member,slippage rotation at the ends of members due to the imperfect bond of reinforcing bars and the effects of P-A actions are all consideredin this method.The numerical results show that the presented method and the programmed code are very effective both in computing CPU time and storage reguirement,and very satisfactory in explaining the earthquake hazards of building structures and predicting the possible damages of newly designed structures.