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Evaluation of an approximate seismic analysis technique

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007
AGBABIAN ASSOCIATES, 250 N. NASH STREET, EL SAGUNDO, CALIFORNIA 90245

Abstract

Dynamic responses of a series (3,024 cases) of 2-degree-of-freedom structure/equipment models to earthquake excitations were determined "exactly" and were compared with approximate responses obtained by a simple approximate seismic analysis technique that is used by some design engineers to determine equipment response spectra. The results of the evaluation of errors in estimating the equipment acceleration spectra with approximate solution techniques indicate that for the system under consideration, (1) the errors fluctuate over a wide range from overly conservative to highly unconservative without any discernible trend, (2) the predictions of the approximate analysis lack consistency, and (3) the range of validity of the approximate solution technique cannot be ascertained.