| Abstract: | Analysis and comparison of the dynamic responses of three well instrumented (with accelerographs) high-rise buildings shaken during the 1984 Morgan Hill earthquake are presented. The buildings examined in the present work are (i) the Town Park Towers Apartment building, a 10-storey, concrete shear wall building; (ii) the Great Western Savings and Loan building, a 10-storey building with concrete frames and shear walls; and (iii) the Santa Clara County Office building, a 13-storey, moment-resistant steel frame building. The structures are located within 2 km of each other and, as may be confirmed by visual inspection of the recorded seismograms, experienced similar ground motions. One-dimensional and three-dimensional linear structural models are fitted to the observations using the modal minimization method' for structural identification, in order to determine optimal estimates of the parameters of the dominant modes of the buildings. The time-varying character of these parameters over the duration of the response is also investigated. Comparison of the recorded earthquake response of the structures reveals that the type of lateral-load-resisting system has an important effect on the dynamic behaviour of the structures because it controls the spacing of the characteristic modes on the frequency axis. The Santa Clara County Office building has closely spaced natural frequencies and exhibits strong torsional response and modal coupling. Its dynamic behaviour is contrasted with that of the Great Western Savings and Loan building which has well separated natural frequencies and exhibits small torsional response and no modal coupling. Strong modal coupling causes a beating-type phenomenon and makes earthquake response of structures different from that envisioned by codes. |
