Linear Structural Analysis of Multistory Buildings

A technique is developed for the analysis of two or three-dimensional multistory building frames subjected to a general system of loads. Floors are assumed to be perfectly rigid in their own plane and the structural framing system is treated as an assemblage of interconnected plane frames; there are no restrictions on the orientation or manner of interconnection of these frames. The torsional stiffness of all members is neglected. Within the limitations of these assumptions, the analysis is exact; conditions of displacement-compatibility and equilibrium are fully satisfied at all joints in the structure, including those at lines of intersection of two or more frames. The partitioning of the structure into plane frames forms the basis for a substructure technique that is employed in the analysis. A computer program based on the proposed method of analysis was used to analyze several large multistory buildings on two computers of widely differing capacities. These analyses demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique.