Optimal lateral load pattern for pushover analysis of building structures

Pushover analysis captures the behavior of a structure from fully elastic to collapse. In this analysis, the structure is subjected to increasing lateral load with constant gravity one. Neglecting the effects of the higher modes and the changes in the vibration characteristics during the nonlinear analysis are the main obstacles of the proposed lateral load patterns. To overcome these drawbacks, whereas some methods have been presented to achieve updated lateral load distribution, these methods are not precisely capable to predict the response of structures, precisely. In this study, a new method based on optimization procedure is developed to obtain a lateral load pattern for which the difference between the floor displacements of pushover and Nonlinear Dynamic Analyses (NDA) is minimal For this purpose, an optimization problem is considered and the genetic algorithm is applied to calculate optimal lateral load pattern. Three special moment resisting steel frames with different dynamic characteristics are simulated and their optimal load patterns are derived. The floor displacements of these frames subjected to the proposed and conventional load patterns are acquired and the accuracy of them is evaluated via comparing with NDA responses. The outcomes reveal that the proposed lateral load distribution is more accurate than the previous ones.