Seismic Behaviour and Design of Irregular and Complex Civil Structures





Preface

Real structures are almost always irregular as perfect regularity is an idealization

that very rarely occurs. Structural irregularities may vary dramatically in their

nature, and, in principle, the concept of irregularity is a fuzzy one. Because of

the complex behaviour of such structures under earthquake excitations, it is not

surprising that, in spite of the large research efforts in plan irregular building

structures dating back to the 1970s, even in recent years, many papers have been

devoted to a better understanding of seismic response both of simplified one-storey

and of multi-storey building models.

Of course, research interest has shifted from investigating elastic response to

inelastic response and, subsequently, to developing passive control design strategies,

which appear to be a suitable alternative to traditional design in order to mitigate

irregularity effects. Additionally, a number of studies have dealt with adequacy of

design specifications subscribed by major seismic codes and with issues arising

from use of analysis methods, such as pushover analysis; only few studies still are

devoted to investigating experimental response and effects of rotational components

of input ground motions.


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