IRREGUALR STRUCTURES

Configuration discontinuities and lateral-force-resisting systems defines Irregular structures. Irregularities of a

structure is limited especially in higher zones. The static lateral force method is based on a regular distribution of
stiffness and mass in a structure accuracy becomes less as the structure varies from this assumption. In the past
events, regular buildings perform better in earthquakes than structures having irregularity features. Exception
can be given such as for a drift-based examination, A structure under design lateral forces, and for each storey,
interstorey drift ratios are computed. If the drift ratio in each story is less than 1.3 times the drift ratio in the story
directly above it, the structure may be deemed to not have the structural irregularities of stiffness. When carrying
out the drift check, the top two stories of the building need not be evaluated and accidental torsion need not be
included. Irregular features include, but are not limited to, those will be discussed herein. The irregularities
definitions herein are according to Fundamental concepts of Earthquake Engineering by Roberto Villaverde. The
irregularity of a structure is classified into two the vertical and horizontal irregularities.

VERTICAL STRUCTURAL IRREGULARITIES

Type 1a: Stiffness irregularity: soft story
A soft story is one in which the lateral stiffness is less than 70% of the lateral stiffness in the story
above or less than 80% of the average stiffness of the three stories above.
Type 1b: Stiffness irregularity: extreme soft story
An extreme soft story is one in which the lateral stiffness is less than 60% of the lateral stiffness of
the story above or less than 70% of the average stiffness of the three stories above.
Type 2: Weight (mass) irregularity
Mass irregularity is considered to exist when the effective mass of any story is more than 150% of
the effective mass of an adjacent story. A roof that is lighter than the floor below need not be considered.
Type 3: Vertical geometric irregularity
Vertical geometric irregularity is considered to exist when the horizontal dimension of the lateral-
force-resisting system in any story is more than 130% of that in the adjacent story.
Type 4: In-plane discontinuity in vertical lateral-force-resisting elements
It is considered to exist when there is an in-plane offset of the lateral-force-resisting elements
greater than the length of the elements or a reduction in stiffness of the resisting element in the story below.
Type 5a: Discontinuity in lateral strength: weak story
A weak story is one in which the story lateral strength is less than 80% of the lateral strength of the
story above. (Story strength is the total strength of seismic-resisting elements sharing the story shear for the
direction under consideration.)
Type 5b: Discontinuity in lateral strength: extreme weak story
A weak story is one in which the story lateral strength is less than 65% of the lateral strength of the
story above. (Story strength is the total strength of seismic-resisting elements sharing the story shear for the
direction under consideration.)
 VERTICAL STRUCTURAL IRREGULARITIES
Type 1a: Torsional irregularity (considered when diaphragms are rigid or semirigid)
Torsional irregularity exists when the maximum story drift at one end of the structure transverse to
an axis, computed with accidental torsion included, is more than 1.2 times the average of the story drifts at
the two ends of the structure.
Type 1b: Extreme torsional irregularity (considered when diaphragms are rigid or semirigid)
Extreme torsional irregularity exists when the maximum story drift at one end of the structure
transverse to an axis, computed with accidental torsion included, is more than 1.4 times the average of the
story drifts at the two ends of the structure.
Type 2: Re-entrant corners
Reentrant corners exist in a structure when both projections of the structure beyond a reentrant
corner are greater than 15% of the plan dimension of the structure in the given direction.
Type 3: Diaphragm discontinuity
Diaphragm discontinuity exists when a diaphragm possesses an abrupt discontinuity or exhibits a
stiffness variation, including a cutout or open area greater than 50% of the gross enclosed diaphragm area,
or changes in effective stiffness of more than 50% from one story to the next.
Type 4: Out-of-plane offsets
Out-of-plane offsets exist when there is a discontinuity in a lateral-force-resisting path, such as out-
of-plane offsets of the vertical elements.
Type 4: Nonparallel resisting systems
A nonparallel resisting system is one in which the vertical lateral-force-resisting elements are not
parallel to or symmetric about the major orthogonal axes of the lateralforce-resisting system.
.

Dynamic Response to Structure

1.2.1 Response to wind

Vijaya (2014) among the first to present a rational experiment and theoretical study analysis of
telecommunication tower from the wind analysis using STADD. Pro 2007 software it can be observed
that the increase in joint displacement is nearly 68% when tower height increases from 30m to 40m and
when tower height increases from 40m to 50m the displacement is likely to increase by 60%. The change
in stress when height increase from 30m to 40m is about 45% and from 40m to 50m is 39% on both
cases of wind speeds. For an increase in wind speed from 50 to 55/s with no change in direction the
displacement as well as the member stresses increase by 15% to 17%.

More recently, Venkateswarlu et al. (1994) conducted a numerical study of the response of
microwave lattice towers to random wind loads. The dynamic response was predicted using a stochastic
approach, and a spectral analysis method (frequency-domain) was proposed for calculating the along-
wind response and the resulting gust response factor. The gust response factor is defined as the ratio of
the maximum expected wind load effect in a specified time period to the corresponding mean value in
the same time period. A free-standing four-legged tower of 101 m height was used as a case study. The
variation of the gust response factor along tower height was calculated with and without the
contribution of the second and higher lateral modes of variation of the tower, and it was found that the
maximum contribution of these higher modes to the gust response factor was only about 2%. The gust
response factor obtained using the proposed stochastic method varied between 1.55 and 1.58 along the
height. Values calculated using the formula recommended by the Indian (IS:875-1987), Australian (AS
1170-2-1989), British (BS 8100-1986) and American (ASCE 7-88-1990) standards, were found to be 2.03,
2.21, 1.93 and 1.89, respectively. Comparing these results, it was concluded that the standards values
are conservative with difference in the order of 20% to 40%, at least for the case study considered.

Seismic response

More recently, Mikus (1994) studied the seismic response of self-supporting telecommunication
tower using modal superposition analysis. The aim of this preliminary study was to improve the
understanding of the response of theses towers to earthquakes. Six towers with height ranging
from 20m to 90m were modeled: bare tower only, i.e. without antennae, attachments, ancillary
components etc. Three earthquake records were selected as the base excitation. A detailed
linear dynamic analysis was performed using modal superposition, and it was concluded that the
use of the lowest four lateral modes of vibration provided sufficient accuracy. The frequency of
the first axial mode of the towers was found to be in the range of 11 to 43 Hz, which was either
not present in the frequency content of the earthquake records used or corresponded to small
amplitudes of input acceleration. As a result, the effects of the vertical component of the
earthquake proved negligible.

A first attempt to propose an equivalent static method for the analysis of lattice self-
supporting telecommunication towers was made by Galvez (1995). The method was bases on
modal superposition, considering the effect of the lowest three flexural modes of vibration of
the tower. As self-supporting towers behave essentially as cantilever beams, Galvez suggested
the use of natural frequencies and mode shapes expression developed for prismatic cantilever.
The effect of taper ratio and shear deformations were included by means of correction factors
to the classical solution for prismatic Euler cantilever. The proposed expression for the natural
frequency of mode

2.2 Dynamic Response of transmission line structures

The study of the complex dynamic problem arising from the coupled behavior of the
tower-cable system attracted several researchers. Some of the investigated the dynamic loads
on transmission towers due to galloping of the conductors (Baenziger et al. 1994), conductor
breakage (McClure and Tinawi 1987 and McClure 1989), ice shedding from the cables
(Jamaleddine et al. 1993) and the free vibration of the coupled system (Ozono et al. 1988 and
Ozono and Maeda a1992). However, most of the published work on seismic analysis of
transmission line involves either the tower or the cable alone without considering the coupled
tower-cable problem.

Long (1974) was among the first to publish on the seismic response transmission towers,
more or less at the same period as the pioneering studies on the dynamic response of
telecommunication tower to wind and earthquakes (Section 2.2) Long neglected completely the
effects of the overhead conductors. The study was later extended to evaluate the forces exerted
by the conductors on the tower. The lattice transmission tower model was divided into two
parts: The top part consisted of the prismatic part and the cross arm supporting the conductor,
and was idealized as a flexible uniform cantilever, while the bottom part was simply assumed to
be a rigid body. The absolute displacement of the flexible cantilever portion, u(x,t) , was then
approximated by the following equation:
∞
𝑚𝑙 4 ℎ (𝑥)
u(x,t) = z(t) + ∑∞
𝑘𝑚𝑙 hk(x)fk(t) − ż(t)[ci(x)-∑ [ 𝑘 4 ] (2.13)
𝐸𝐼 𝑘𝑚 𝜆𝑘

where

z(t) = ground displacement

hk(x) = deflection curve for normal mode of vibration k

fk(t) = displacement response to the ground motion of a simple oscülatory system

in mode k

m = mass per unit length

l = length of flexible cantilever portion

EI = flexural rigidity

ż(t) = ground acceleration

1 𝑥 4 1 𝑥 3 1 𝑥 2
ci(x) = deflection due to static uniform loading = ( ) − ( ) + ( )
24 𝐿 6 𝐿 4 𝐿

ƛk = dimensionless frequency, positive root of the equation 1 + cosh 𝜆 cos 𝜆 = 0

for mode k

k = mode number

Eq. )2.13) is therefore the summation of the horizontal ground displacement, the displacement
response of the structure to the ground motion using modal superposition, and a

correction to the deflection resulting from the difference of acceleration loadings of

ground motion and free vibration. The deflection at the top of the tower was evaluated

using eq. (2.13), assuming that the maximum values of each of the three terms in the

equation occurred simultaneously. A response spectrum was used to evaluate the maximum
value of the response function f(t), and the maximum value of the ground displacements, z(t),
and acceleration, ż(t), were obtained from the earthquake records. After all these calculation for
a case study of a 43m transmission tower, it was concluded that the entire tower moved rigidly
with ground and that no amplification of stresses was produced by the ground motion. The
second part of the study aimed at calculating the force exerted by the conductors on the tower
due to the earthquake excitation, assuming compatibility of tower motions with conductors
motions. Three orthogonal earthquake directions were considered namely, transverse,
longitudinal and vertical. The forces calculated in the three cases were found to be very small
and could be resisted safely. It should be noted that the tower used in the study was a relatively
rigid one having a lowest frequency of vibration of about 5 Hz.

Kotsubo et al. (1985) performed dynamic measurements on three transmission towers

before and after installation of the conductors. The purpose of their study was to determine the
effects of the conductors on the dynamic characteristics of the towers. The three tower used
were two strain towers (with conductors directly anchored to the tower) with heights of 92.5 m
and 68.2m, and a suspension tower with height of 92.2m. The results were published for the
case of the suspension tower only. The natural frequencies and modes of vibration of the tower
were calculated using both plane truss model and a space truss model. Ambient vibration
measurements for the tower were taken before the installation of the cables. The natural
frequencies, modes of vibration and damping properties were extracted from these
measurements using FFT analysis. After the installation of the cables, forced vibration tests
using an exciter were carried out. The exciter was set up on third arm from the top of the tower.
It was observed that there were no significant changes in the natural frequencies and the modes
of vibration of the tower before and after the cable stringing, which suggested that the dynamic
interaction between the cables and towers is insignificant for suspension towers. The damping
ratio of the tower was found to be in the range of 0.2% to 2.0% of the critical viscous damping.
The earthquake responses were then calculated using the plane truss model and the space truss
model ignoring the presence of the cables. For the plane truss model, the responses were
calculated for both the longitudinal and the transverse direction to the transmission line. It was
concluded that it is sufficient to model the tower as a plane truss.

In a more recent study conducted by Li et al. (1991) models for long-span transmission
line systems under earthquake effects were presented. The study included the derivation of
mass and stiffness matrices for the tower-cable coupled system for the longitudinal and
transverse directions. For the vertical direction the mass of the conductors was calculated ad
lumped at the appropriate joints. For each of the three principal directions a dynamic analysis
was carried out using three earthquake records namely Qian’an (China), El Centro (USA) and
Ninghe (China). The analysis was done for the following three cases for comparison:

I- The discretized model of the tower without the conductors:

II- The dicretized model of the tower with the mass of the conductors lumped at relevant
tower joints:
III- The coupled tower-conductor model.

It was found that for the vertical ground motion the seismic response of model II is
greater than that of model I. For both the lateral and longitudinal ground motions, the
response of model III was greater than that of model II, which in turn was greater than
that of model I. It was concluded that the effects of the conductors on the seismic
response of their supporting tower are bot negligible and should be taken into
consideration.

Li et al. (1994) studied the seismic response of high voltage overhead

transmission line. In the study the tower was discretized as a lumped mass multi-
degree-of-freedom system in t he horizontal direction and assumed rigid in the vertical
direction. It was further assumed that the supporting towers vibrate in phase with each
other. Each cable span divided into five equal straight segments, the mass of each being
lumped at its ends. The ground motion of the coupled tower-conductor system was
presented using previous assumptions. A numerical example was presented in which a
55m height tower with conductors spanning 400m was analyzed under the effect of
horizontal earthquake excitation. Three earthquake records were used in the study,
namely El Centro (1940) representing a soft site, San Fernando/Pacoima Dam (1971)
representing a medium-stiff site and Olympia (1965) representing a stiff site. Two
models were used in the analyses: one considering the presence of the conductor
(model I) and one neglecting the presence of the conductors (model II). However, for
Model II it was not mentioned whether or not the mass of the conductors was included
in the analysis. Displacements and shear forces were compared for the two models and
it was found that neglecting the presence of the cables could result in an
underestimation of up to 66% (in case of the Pacoima Dam earthquake) in the shear
force evaluated at the tower base. It was therefore concluded that the tower cable
interaction greatly affects the seismic response of the tower and neglecting their
presence may lead to unsafe prediction forces in the tower members.

In a preliminary study, El Attar et al. (1995) investigated the response of

transmission lines under the effect of vertical seismic forces. The tower used in the
study was modeled by plane truss elements while the cables were modeled using two-
node straight elements taking geometric non-linearities into consideration. Damping of
the supporting towers was assumed to be 2% of the critical viscous damping (in all
modes) while that of the cables was taken as only 1%. The tower alone was subjected to
a horizontal sinusoidal ground acceleration of 0.28 g representing Victoria (Canada) in
accordance to the NBCC 1990 recommendation. From this analysis the maximum
 displacement of the tower at the top level was determined, which resulted mainly from
the contribution of the first mode of vibration. However, this conclusion should not be
generalized as it contradicts most of the published work in this area on interest (Mikus
1994, Galvez 1995 and Galvez and McClure 1995), which suggests that at least the
lowest three modes of vibration should be included in the analysis. This conclusion
might be suitable for short and stiff towers in which to the higher modes are not likely
to be triggered by an earthquake. The cable was subjected to the vertical component of
two earthquakes, San Fernando for low A/V ratio and Parkfield for high A/V ratio, after
being scaled to a peak ground acceleration of 0.21 g representing 3/4 of the horizontal
components prescribed for Victoria. The vertical displacement of the cable at mid span
was calculated and it was found that the displacement resulting from the low A/V
earthquake was more than four times the response was also investigated and it was
found more pronounce in records with low A/V ratio as a change in the damping value
form 1% to 4% resulted in a decrease of 32% in the displacement at mid span in
comparison to a 22% decrease for the high A/V ratio. The study did not report any
analysis of the coupled tower-conductor system.

Ghobara et al. (1996) proposed a simplified technique to investigate the effect

2.1.3 Seismic response of transmission tower-line system

Li Tian et al. (2010) demonstrates that the ground motion spatial variation effect is very
important to transmission tower-line system. As many cat head type towers, cup towers, and guyed
towers are of transmission systems, more studies are deemed necessary to further investigate the
ground motion spatial variation effects on responses of these systems. The effect of the spatial variation
of earthquake ground motion on the response of the transmission tower-line system has been
investigated in this paper. The members of transmission tower are modeled by beam elements and the
nonlinear dynamic behavior of cables is taken into account. The input of ground motion is taken as
displacement time histories. Artificial ground displacement records are also developed and used in the
analysis. The nonlinear time history analytical method is used in the analysis. The influence of the
boundary condition, spatially varying ground excitations, incident angle of the seismic wave, coherency,
and wave travel on the system are considered.

 The boundary condition has an obvious effect on the response of the system. In order to obtain
the accurate result, three towers and four-spans model must be taken in the analysis.
 The case of uniform support excitation does not produce the maximum response in the system.
The multiple support excitation, which is a more realistic assumption, can result in larger
response. The effect of spatially varying ground motion cannot be neglected.
 The coherency loss has a significant effect on the response of the system. The uncorrelated
ground motion gives bigger response than other cases. In order to obtain a representative
analysis, the various degrees of coherency should be considered.
 The assumed velocity of propagation of seismic waves has a significant effect on the response of
system to seismic ground motion. In order to obtain a representative analysis of the system, an
accurate estimation of the wave velocity is required.