On the applicability of pushover analysis for seismic evaluation of medium‐ and high‐rise buildings

The assumption that the dynamic performance of structures is mainly determined from the corresponding single-degree-of-freedom system in pushover analysis is generally valid for low-rise structures, where the structural behaviour is dominated by the first vibration mode. However, higher modes of medium- and high-rise structures will have significant effect on the dynamic characteristics. In this paper, the applicability of pushover analysis for seismic evaluation of medium-to-high-rise shear-wall structures is investigated. The displacements and internal forces of shear wall structures with different heights are determined by nonlinear response history analysis, where the shear walls are considered as multi-degree-of-freedom systems and modelled by fibre elements. The results of the analysis are compared with those from the pushover procedure. It is shown that pushover analysis generally underestimates inter-storey drifts and rotations, in particular those at upper storeys of buildings, and overestimates the peak roof displacement at inelastic deformation stage. It is shown that neglecting higher mode effects in the analysis will significantly underestimate the shear force and overturning moment. It is suggested that pushover analysis may not be suitable for analysing high-rise shear-wall or wall-frame structures. New procedures of seismic evaluation for shear-wall and wall-frame structures based on nonlinear response history analysis should be developed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.