Abstract
In this paper, the peak seismic response of an existing middle-rise steel reinforced concrete (SRC) building, which is composed both brittle and ductile members, is evaluated by the equivalent linearization technique and its accuracy is discussed. In this study, nonlinear time-history analyses of an example SRC building is carried out considering the strength degradation of shear-dominated brittle members, by using two groups of artificial ground motions; the phase angles are given by uniform random value and envelope function for the first group of ground motions, and for the another group their phase angles are given from records of the past earthquakes. The results show that the accuracy of the predicted peak response by the equivalent linearization technique is strongly depends on the phase characteristics of ground motions. To evaluate the difference of nonlinear response of an analyzed building, the substitute damping defined at peak response is calculated and compared to that defined at end.
