A code compatible approach to justify the seismic design of simplified structures

An attempt to find out the most probable displacement demands of precast cantilever columns has been presented here. The purpose of the findings presented is to set up a more reliable design philosophy based on dynamic displacement considerations instead of using acceleration spectrum based design which initiates the action with unclear important assumptions such as the initial stiffness, displacement ductility ratio etc. The sole aim of this paper is to define a procedure for overcoming the difficulties rising right at the beginning of the traditional design procedure. For that purpose first 12 groups of earthquake records cover the cases of far field, near field, firm soil, soft soil possibilities for 2/50, 10/50 and 50/50 earthquakes with minimum scale factors are identified associated to the present fundamental period of structure. And they are reselected for each new period of structure during the iterative algorithm presented here and they are used to remove the displacement calculations based on static consideration. Nonlinear Time History Analysis (NLTHA) are employed within the algorithm presented here which takes into account the strength and stiffness degradations of structural elements and the duration of records which are ignored in the spectrum based design philosophy.