Estimating Earthquake Response of Simple Hysteretic Structures

This paper examines various methods for defining effective linear systems for the earthquake response analysis of simple hysteretic structures. A broad class of approximate methods is considered including: harmonic equivalent linearization, resonant amplitude matching, dynamic mass, constant critical damping, geometric stiffness, geometric energy, stationary random equivalent linearization, and average period and damping. A technique for estimating the accuracy of different approximate methods is presented. A new linearization scheme that may be applied to both degrading and nondegrading hysteretic systems is proposed.