Do We Really Need Inelastic Dynamic Analysis?

The paper examines the requirements for inelastic static and dynamic analysis applied to earthquake design and assessment. Conventional pushover, with various load distributions, as well as advanced adaptive concepts are examined and compared to incremental dynamic analysis. Regions of applicability of each are discussed and suggestions on which method is better suited under a given set of conditions are qualitatively made. It is concluded that there will always be a class of structure-input motion pairs where inelastic dynamic analysis is necessary. Future developments should aim at reducing the regions where dynamic analysis is needed, hence static analysis may be used with confidence in other cases.