Prediction of nonlinear seismic demands of high‐rise rocking wall structures using a simplified modal pushover analysis procedure

This study presents a simplified analysis procedure for the convenient estimation of nonlinear seismic demands of high‐rise rocking wall structures. For this purpose, the displacement modification approach used in the nonlinear static procedure of ASCE/SEI 41‐13 is adopted. However, in the current study, this approach is extended to every significant vibration mode of the structure whereas the displacement modifying coefficients for different modes are calculated using the typical flag‐shaped hysteresis behavior of rocking walls. The parameters of this hysteresis behavior are selected to represent rocking walls with a practical range of energy dissipation capacity and postgap‐opening stiffness. The computed peak inelastic‐to‐elastic displacement ratios are presented as mean spectra, which can be used for the convenient estimation of pushover target displacement for every significant vibration mode. The accuracy of proposed procedure is examined using the seismic demands obtained from the nonlinear response history analysis of a 20‐story case study rocking wall structure. Furthermore, a modal decomposition technique is used to determine the individual modal seismic demands. The proposed procedure is found to predict both the combined and the individual modal demands with a reasonable accuracy and can serve as a convenient analysis option for the design and performance evaluation of high‐rise rocking wall systems.