UCLA

Reinforced concrete (RC) moment frames and shear walls are amongst the most widely used lateral force resisting systems in regions of high seismicity in the US and around the world. Hence, understanding and accurately capturing the behavior of buildings with these lateral systems via nonlinear computer modeling is of great importance for design engineers. In 2018, a 10-story, full-scale, RC building utilizing these lateral systems was tested on the E-Defense shake table. This test provides a unique opportunity to analyze the response of a thoroughly instrumented building with special moment frames and special structural walls that are generally compliant with ASCE 7-16 and ACI 318-19 design requirements. Furthermore, it allows for the experimental verification of common nonlinear computer modeling techniques for these lateral systems. The direction of this research is to accurately capture the nonlinear global and local behavior of the 10-story test specimen subjected to ground shaking using a sophisticated non-linear computer model. Although this experimental test does present some difficulties, specifically the effect of the sliding-base foundation, validation studies demonstrate that the nonlinear model can accurately predict overall building behavior when subjected to ground excitation. This thesis outlines the experimental program of the shake table test and the nonlinear modeling approach used to best capture the response of the building.