Development of computer software for Direct Displacement Based Design

Fabrizio Magni
1
; Tim Sullivan
2
; Rui Pinho
3
; Gian Michele Calvi
4


Summary
The Direct Displacement Based Design (DDBD) approach has been developed by a number of researchers
during the past two decades and it is now recognized as an effective tool for the seismic design of many
different structural typologies. However, practical application of the DDBD methodology is somewhat hindered
by the current absence of software tools for the approach. With this in mind, an ongoing research project in Italy
is aiming to develop and verify an integrated software package that will guide practitioners through each step of
the DDBD procedure, thus allowing them to make informed and rational design choices, but avoiding the time-
consuming manual calculations that are currently required. In this work the general algorithm for the DDBD
program is presented and challenging programming aspects are identified and discussed. The DDBD of a
regular reinforced concrete wall structure is carried out using the new software with a view to verify its usability,
workings and output. The performance of the design solution is gauged through comparison of the expected
response with that predicted by non-linear dynamic analyses undertaken using a fiber-based structural analysis
program. The preliminary results indicate that the new DDBD software could hold great potential for the
engineering profession.

Keywords
Displacement based design, wall structures, engineering software, DBDsoft.

Theme
buildings design earthquake engineering concrete

1
MSc., Researcher EUCENTRE Pavia/Italy fabrizio.magni@eucentre.it
2
PhD., Assistant Professor, Universit degli Studi di Pavia, Section Head EUCENTRE Pavia/Italy
tim.sullivan@eucentre.it
3
PhD., Assistant Professor, Universit degli Studi di Pavia, rui.pinho@unipv.it
4
PhD., Professor, IUSS Pavia, Italy, gm.calvi@eucentre.it

1. Introduction
The design procedure known as Direct Displacement-Based Design (DDBD) has been developed over the past
decade with the aim of mitigating the deficiencies in current force-based design. The fundamental difference
from force-based design is that DDBD utilises the secant stiffness and an equivalent viscous damping value to
characterise the structure at its peak displacement response, rather than use its initial elastic characteristics
together with a force reduction factor. The fundamental philosophy behind the design approach is to design a
structure which would achieve, rather than be bounded by, a given performance limit state under a given
seismic intensity. This approach could permit uniform-risk structures, which is philosophically compatible with
the uniform-risk seismic spectra incorporated in design codes. The design procedure determines the strength
required at designated plastic hinge locations to achieve the design aims in terms of defined displacement
objectives. It must then be combined with capacity design procedures to ensure that plastic hinges occur only
where intended, and that non-ductile modes of inelastic deformation do not develop. Even if this procedure is
widely recognized in academia and research, dissemination of such a procedure amongst practitioners is
limited by a lack of software that incorporates this innovative design approach. To address this, the Design
Methods Section of EUCENTRE is implementing the DDBD procedure for RC structures within a computer
software package. In the following sections, the background and workings of the program will be described.

2. Basic formulation of the DDBD method
The design method is illustrated with reference to Figure 1, which considers a frame-wall building (Figure 1(a)),
although the basic fundamentals apply to all structural types.

he
(a) SDOF Condensation
MDOF structure
F
me
E
q
u
i
v
a
l
e
n
t

V
i
s
c
o
u
s

Fn
Fd
rKi
Ke
Ki
Displacement
y
d
F
o
r
c
e

(b) Effective Stiffness Ke
eq
Displacement ductility
E
q
u
i
v
a
l
e
n
t

V
i
s
c
o
u
s

RC structure
Steel structure
Pre-stressed structure
(c) Equivalent damping vs. ductility
Period (s)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
)

10%
5%
15%
(d) Design displacement spectra
d
Te
e


Figure 1: Fundamentals of the Direct DBD method, adapted from Priestley et al (2007)

The design starts with the selection of a target displacement value, d, that will ensure that deformation
controlled performance criteria are satisfied. The structure is characterized by the secant stiffness Ke at the
maximum displacement d (Figure 1b) and a level of equivalent viscous damping eq, representative of the
combined elastic damping and the hysteretic energy absorbed during inelastic response. As such, the design
proceeds by estimating the ductility demand on the system and from that, an equivalent viscous damping value
(Figure 1c). The effective period Te at the maximum displacement response d measured at the effective height
He (Figure 1a) can then be read from the design displacement spectra scaled to the equivalent viscous
damping level. The effective stiffness Ke of the equivalent SDOF system at the maximum displacement can
then be found by inverting the normal equation for the period of a SDOF oscillator to provide Ke=4
2
me/Te
2

where me is the effective mass of the structure participating in the fundamental mode of vibration. The design
base shear force can then be found as the product of the secant stiffness and design displacement, i.e. F= Vbase
= Ke d (Figure 1b). The design concept is thus very simple. Such complexity relates to determination of the
substitute structure characteristics, to determination of the design displacement, and development of design
displacement spectra.
For multi degree of freedom (MDOF) structures the main challenge is to identify the equivalent SDOF system
characteristics. In order to convert a MDOF system into an equivalent SDOF system one requires knowledge of
the design displacement profile, which can be used to give the design displacement d=(mii
2
)/(mii),
effective mass me=(mii)/d and effective height He=(miHi
2
)/(mii) where mi is the mass, i the
displacement and Hi the height of level i. Existing DDBD procedures utilise various expressions to define the
design displacement profile, depending on the structural typology and on the seismic intensity. For what
regards intensity, if the response is expected to be elastic, then the design displaced shape should correspond
to the elastic first mode of vibration of the structure. It is more likely, however, that for regions of moderate and
high seismicity ductile response should be expected. In such cases the designer would utilise expressions
provided in the literature (e.g. Priestley et al. 2007) to set the design displacement profile. For instance, for RC
moment resisting frame systems in which beam-sway type mechanisms are selected, then the empirical height-
dependent expression of i,ls=chi (4Hn - hi)/(4Hn h1) can be utilised.
Alternatively, if the structure is a coupled RC wall structure, then an analytical displaced shape expression is
adopted that sums elastic and inelastic deformation components (see Priestley et al. 2007 for details) to form
i=yW(hi
2
/2- hi
3
/(6 hCF))+pCWhi (for hi

< hCF) and i=yW(hCFhi/2- hi
2
/6)+pCWhi (for hi

> hCF) .
Note that the wall nominal yield curvature, yW, can be set without knowledge of the section strength, using only
section dimensions. It is apparent from previous equations that the displaced shape is significantly influenced
by the contraflexure height, Hcf, which is in turn directly related to the proportions of overturning resisted by the
hinging coupling beams and wall base hinges respectively. Note that strength proportions are also used to
establish the displaced shape of other mixed structural mechanisms such as frame-wall systems. In addition, in
order to calculate the equivalent viscous damping of a mixed structural system, the DDBD process factors the
damping of individual systems by the relative work done (and therefore by the strength proportions) of the
different lateral load resisting systems making up the total system (see [2] and [6] for further details). Thus, for
the development of a displacement-based design program, it is apparent that strength proportions become an
important design input and the manner in which this is addressed in the new DDBD software is discussed in
Section 4.3.

3. Challenges for the development of a DDBD software
The development of a DDBD software is a challenge for various reasons. It requires the development of a new
set of algorithms to allow the incorporation of DDBD principles into a robust software and to achieve consistent
results. One could argue that the DDBD approach is philosophically different from the force based design
approach and therefore the know-how knowledge developed over the last decades can only be partially
exploited. For example the finite element theory is not very beneficial to the implementation of the DDBD
procedure within a computer program. In finite element theory the elementary parts of a generic structure are
elements such as beams, columns and walls. In contrast, within the DDBD approach, the structural form that
the groups of elements create, such as regular frames, walls, or coupled walls, becomes more significant for
the design process than the individual elements themselves.
Another aspect that should be taken into account regards the interaction between user and software. DDBD
procedure and therefore DDBD-based software should allow the user to guide and influence the design
process and not vice versa. The design process should be developed on the basis of the designers choices
and the software must be able to account for this.
Finally, since engineers are used to working with FEM based software it is recognised that the interface for the
new DDBD program, DBDsoft, should be structured to be as similar as possible to existing structural analysis
programs, with the aim of ensuring that engineers find the program to be user-friendly.

4. Basic structure of the displacement-based design software: DBDsoft
If a good design method must help designers think clearly, computer-aided design must primarily be an aid to
clear thinking [3]. With this in mind, the preprocessor area and graphical interface in DBDsoft have been
realized with the aim of guiding the user through each design step and providing a real time feedback about
actions taken. DBDsoft incorporates the three basic principles of programming: (i) Abstraction; (ii) Model-View-
Controller (MVC); (iii) Prototyping & Inheritance.
The basic structure of the DBDsoft program is illustrated in Figure 2. The user is prompted to provide a number
of inputs, starting with material and section properties as well as element classes and then proceeding through
the definition of the structural geometry, restraints, loads and masses and performance criteria. As such, at
least in the global sense, the program does have a very similar layout to traditional force-based software
packages.


Figure 2: Screen-shot of the pre-processor area of the displacement-based design program DBDsoft.

Note, however, there are important differences between the inputs required for DBDsoft and those typically
required for a force-based design program. For instance, in the definition of section properties, the designer
must provide sufficient information to permit the evaluation of the nominal yield curvature and limit-state
curvatures. The nominal yield curvature can be approximated with reasonable accuracy (see Priestley et al.
2007) using section dimensions and material properties but without knowledge of the section strength. Such
information is more important than, for instance, the cracked section stiffness, which is not requested by
DBDsoft since it is not required for DDBD and for RC structures the cracked section stiffness is a function of
the strength and therefore could not be known with sufficient accuracy until the design procedure terminates
and required strengths are identified.
The DBDsoft post-processor area features a series of modules where results of the design can be viewed in
table, graphical format or on the 3D model, and then copied into any other Windows application. With regards
to the main processor, DBDsoft executes the calculations described in Section 2. In doing so, note that to
address the challenge of creating a novel piece of software that guides but does not control the designer,
DBDsoft incorporates two particularly novel concepts: Firstly, the program user must identify the locations in
which plastic hinge are intended to form, thus identifying the design plastic mechanism; Secondly, the designer
is prompted to choose the relative strengths that will be assigned to the structural elements. The motivation for
these two characteristics of the software and the means by which they are currently implemented and used by
DBDsoft to arrive at the final DDBD solution are explained in subsequent sections.

4.1. Selection of plastic hinge locations
Within DBDsoft the designer is prompted to identify the intended plastic hinge locations. The selection of a
suitable plastic mechanism is fundamental for good seismic design. For example, it is common knowledge that
for RC frames designers should aim for beam-sway mechanisms in which beams form flexural plastic hinges
at their ends, rather than column-sway (soft storey) mechanisms. These two different mechanisms are
illustrated in the figure below.

Beam-Sway Mechanism Column-Sway Mechanism

Figure 3: Displaced shapes of two different plastic mechanisms that could develop in an RC frame structure.

While there are clearly some mechanisms that should be avoided (such as the column sway-mechanism), it is
also recognised that the plastic mechanism should be the designers choice. For instance, some codes permit
that the weak-beam concept is not enforced at roof level where the consequences of columns yielding is not
likely to significantly reduce the system deformation capacity. Alternatively, some engineers may choose to
detail beams between core walls to be released and therefore play no significant role in the lateral load
resisting system, whereas others might prefer to utilise such beams to couple the walls and would therefore be
detailing the beam ends to be able to develop ductile plastic hinges.
As such, with regard to the distribution of plastic hinges, the only requirement that DBDsoft imposes is that the
total number of plastic hinges identified must be sufficient for a mechanism to form. This condition is checked
as part of a series of restraint checks within the program. The restraint conditions are checked to guarantee
the presence of the right amount of nodal restraints, elements releases and plastic hinges. For a 3D structure
the number, l, of non-restrained degrees of freedom (DOF) could be expressed by l=6N-i-e where N is the
total number of elements and i & e are respectively external and internal DOF restraints. The structure
should be statically determinate or indeterminate without considering the plastic hinges (l0) and should be an
unstable mechanism (l=-2; DOFx=DOFy=-1) considering the plastic hinges. By analyzing the stiffness matrix
({K}) of the structure the program can establish whether restraint conditions and plastic hinge selections are
sufficient. Without considering plastic hinges, {K} should be invertible. If we call Nph the total number of plastic
hinges selected by the designer, then if the program implements the number of plastic hinges selected, the
stiffness matrix is not invertible but if the program implements Nph 1 hinges (where a plastic hinge is
randomly selected to be internally fixed), then the stiffness matrix should be invertible (and statically
determinate) thus permitting the program to check whether the designer has identified a sufficient number of
plastic hinges. Considering the different types of plastic hinges that could form in a structure, one would note
that the program should permit any type of plastic hinge to be selected; flexural, axial or shear. However,
currently, since the first version of the software has been developed for traditional RC structures, flexural
plastic hinges should be selected.

4.2. Identification of the structural typology and global mechanism
DBDsoft is currently being developed for only four main structural typologies: (i) cantilever wall structures, (ii)
moment-resisting frame structures, (iii) coupled-wall structures and (iv) dual frame-wall structures. The manner
in which the program identifies between the different structural typologies is discussed in next.
In order for DBDsoft to identify the structural typology, the first discriminating condition is the
presence/absence of elements of a specific typology within the model. If there are no elements or only beam
elements the structure is insufficiently defined. If there are only walls, only columns or only columns & walls,
the structure is defined as a cantilever wall (W) system. If there are only beams and walls, the structure could
only be defined as being a wall (W) or Coupled-Wall (CPW) system. If there are only beams and columns, the
structure could be Frame (F) or W. If beams, columns and walls are present within the model, the structure
could be either F,W, Frame-Wall (FW) or CPW.
After this first screening (a necessary condition), specific algorithms group elements internally and identify
each component of these lateral load resisting systems. The subsistence of other requirements is then
checked and this permits each group of elements the structural typology (and associated type of plastic
mechanism) to be identified. For example, to constitute a real W system, elements belonging to a Wall
should meet the following requirements: (i) elements within the projection of a certain XY area (near each
restrained node or ending elements node) should all be of the same type (wall or column); (ii) Wall/Column
elements should transfer shear and moment (should be restrained against horizontal displacement and in-
plane rotation at both ends); (iii) Both ends of all connected beams should be released for in-plane rotations.
Analytical DDBD procedures have been made available for the main four structural typologies listed at the
beginning of this section. The horizontal combination of one or more of such elementary GMs could represent
a very wide range of structures and while the aim is for. At this point the user needs to preliminary assign the
overturning resistance to each GM in terms of percentage or KNm.

4.3. Relative strengths of the structural elements and sub-systems
The relative strengths (strength proportions) of elements and sub-systems are requested in the DBDsoft
program since the strength proportions can affect both the equivalent viscous damping and design
displacement profile, as was discussed in Section 2. The strength proportions are input through the definition
of a factor for each plastic hinge zone., whereby is the percentage of total overturning resistance offered
by the plastic hinge to the substitute structure (note that flexural resistance is used since the program is
currently being developed for RC structures in which flexural plastic hinges are preferred, but in principle, other
hinge types could also be accounted for in a similar manner). The definition of the factor is the designers
choice. This recognises the fact that the moment that develops in a flexural plastic hinge corresponds to the
actual strength provided, which the designer controls (see Priestley et al. 2007 for further discussion).
Within DBDsoft the strength proportion can be specified either as a percentage value, or alternatively, in the
case that the designer wishes to limit the required strength of an element to a specific value corresponding to,
say, a specific reinforcement content, then the user may also specify an absolute value of flexural resistance at
a hinge, provided that there is at least one other undefined strength proportion in which the total system
strength requirements can be achieved (i.e. once the total required overturning strength is found at the end of
the design the difference between the total and absolute values can be taken by the undefined strength
zones). Note that the programme incorporates an option for default values of strength proportions for users
that are initially unsure as to a good distribution of relative strengths. These default values are assigned by the
software on the basis of material and geometrical properties of the sections and elements.
The main internal check for the distribution of the factors is that: (,%)=100% and (KNm)=Mbase. Since
Mbase is one of the last results of the design, in order to meet this last requirement, a preliminary estimation of
total overturning moment (Mbase,trial) is made by the program as a function of the total weight and height and
then the design is iteratively carried out updating the value of Mbase,trial untill MbaseMbase,try. Note that there may
also be a limitation on the manner with which strength proportions vary up the height of a building. For
instance, for RC frame systems, the storey shear capacity will be limited by the strengths of plastic hinges
immediately above and below the storey of interest and therefore, in order to assure a good vertical distribution
of shear resistance, certain limits on the vertical distribution of the factors are imposed. However, note that
this is not a limitation for cantilever wall systems for which the program has been developed to date.

4.4. Evaluation of the substitute structure characteristics
Once the lateral load resisting systems have been identified and the proportions of resistance offered by the
different systems have been established, the program proceeds to evaluate the design displacement profile.
This is relatively simple since the program utilises displaced shape expressions provided by [] and [] which are
a function on the structural typology and strength proportions as well as the performance limit state
deformations. Note that, depending on the design seismic intensity, it may be that there are no plastic hinges
expected within a certain GM, and in this case the displacement profile would be elastic and associated with
the fundamental mode shape. Means of accounting for higher mode deformations, as well as torsion and
diaphragm flexibility, are expected to be part of future research. In addition to the design displacement profile,
the DDBD process requires an equivalent viscous damping value. To establish this, the program identifies the
ductility demands on individual systems, dividing the peak deformation demands associated with the target
limit state, by the yield deformations. These ductility demands are then converted to equivalent viscous
damping values which are then combined on a work-done basis using the strength proportions, , in order to
establish the system damping.
With the design displacement profile and equivalent viscous damping established, it is then only a
straightforward procedure for the program to read off the required effective period (Te), calculate the effective
stiffness (Ke), Base shear (Vbase) and overturning moment (Mbase) for the system. The program then
redistributes the design base shear to the seismic masses as a function of their displacements, and
undertakes an equivalent static analysis in which the secant stiffness is emulated at plastic hinge locations, in
order to find the required design strengths in the system. Note that provided the b-factors (section 4.3) were
assigned appropriately, this analysis should be equivalent to factoring the overturning moment by the
factors. Required member strengths are then adjusted to meet capacity design requirements and combined
with actions due to non seismic loads. The amount of reinforcement required to provide the design moments
for each section should then be determined by the engineer on the basis of national codes or regulations.

5. Case study: Design of a reinforced concrete Wall structure
By now some of the features described in the previous chapter are ready to be used and some other are still
under implementation. By the way, it is already possible to test the software on a real structure. In order to
ease the comparison of results, a simple RC wall structure have been choosen and comparison among
results from DDBDSoft, manual calculations and NLTHA are presented below. The properties of materials,
geometrical characteristics and load pattern are outlined below:
Concrete properties: Expected compressive strength: 30000 KPa; Compressive Strain: 0.002; Ultimate
compressive strain: 0.0035; Specific weight: 0 KN/m
3
.
Rebar Steel properties: Expected yield strength: 500000 KPa; Ultimate strength: 600000 KPa; Yield strain
0.00244; Ultimate strain: 0.1; Specific weight: 0 KN/m
3
; Rebar diameter: 0.025 m.
Geometrical properties: Wall Base: 6 m; Wall thickness: 0.4 m; Building height: 24 m; Interstorey height: 3
m; Mass at each floor: 600 tonne; Max storey drift limit: 0.02.
Seismic action (from EC8): Corner period: 1.92 s; Corner displacement: 0.18 m; PGA: 4.41 m/s
2
.

The procedures outlined in the previous sections have been internally executed by the software and the results
were verified to be the same as those found by manual calculation. Referring to the nomenclature system used
in [4], the main results regarding the displacement profile and SDOF parameters are summarized below.

Level H
i

i,y

i,p

i
[-] [m] [m] [m] [m]
8 24 0.1562 0.2458 0.4019
7 21 0.1270 0.2150 0.3421
6 18 0.0988 0.1843 0.2831
5 15 0.0724 0.1536 0.2260
4 12 0.0488 0.1229 0.1717
3 9 0.0288 0.0922 0.1210
2 6 0.0134 0.0614 0.0749
1 3 0.0035 0.0307 0.0342
0 - - - -

d
= 0.28 [m]
H
e
= 17.53 [m]
m
e
= 3,567 [tonne]

y
= 0.09 [m]
= 2.94 [-]

eq
= 0.14 [-]
R
0
= 0.72 [-]

d,,x
= 0.13 [m]
T
e
= 4.13 [s]
K
e
= 12,777 [KN/m]
V
b
= 3,557 [KN]

Level F
i
V
i
M
i
V
i,Rd
M
i,Rd
[-] [KN] [KN] [KNm] [KN] [KNm]
8 864 864 2,591 4,131 2,591
7 735 864 2,591 4,363 11,128
6 609 1,599 9,980 4,596 19,664
5 486 2,208 14,011 4,828 28,200
4 369 2,693 22,091 5,060 36,736
3 260 3,062 31,278 5,293 47,041
2 161 3,322 41,245 5,525 57,346
1 74 3,483 51,694 5,757 67,651
0 - 3,557 62,365 5,990 77,956


Table 1: Some of the results of the seismic design of the structural wall building.

Even if it is not the main purpose of this paper, results from DBDSoft and manual calculation are now compared
with those obtained from nonlinear time-history analyses (NLTHAs) carried out with SeismoStruct, a fiber-based
software released by Sesimosoft [4]. In preparing the model, pushover analyses were run in order to verify the
non-linear characteristics of the structure. A set of earthquake accelerograms were then scaled to be
compatible with the design response spectrum, using SeismoMatch, a software released by SeismoSoft [4].
The response spectra of the records are plotted in Figure 5a and the peak response points obtained from the
NLTHAs are plotted in Figure 5b in terms of maximum lateral displacement and the corresponding Base Shear.
The bold point labelled DDBD indicates the intended response point. The cloud of results from NLTHAs is near
to the bold point indicating that the designed performed as expected.

0.0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.3
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
S
p
e
c
t
r
a
l

d
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

[
m
]
S
p
e
c
t
r
a
l

a
c
c
e
l
e
r
a
t
i
o
n

[
g
]
Period [s]
Aqa
Aqv
Chi004
Chi008
Kobe
Kocaeli
Mexico
Design [g]
Design [m]

0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
B
a
s
e

S
h
e
a
r

[
K
N
]
Lateral displacement [m]
Aqa
Aqv
Chi004
Chi008
Kobe
Kocaeli
Mexico
Pushover
DDBD

(a) (b)
Figure 5: Response spectra and comparison among different set of results.

Conclusions
The DDBD approach developed by Priestley and his co-workers is typically carried out via manual calculations
or spreadsheets and with this in mind, a DDBD computer program could offer significant time-savings as well
as making the DDBD approach more accessible to practitioners. In this paper a new piece of software,
DBDsoft, has been introduced for the displacement-based seismic design of RC structures. Important
programming challenges have been identified and the manner in which these challenges are being addressed
have been discussed. The paper has presented the design results obtained by DBDSoft for a simple wall
structure, that were been verified to be the same as those obtained through manual calculations. In addition,
the results of non-linear time-history analyses indicate that the design solutions can provide the intended
seismic performance. The software is still under development and further efforts are needed to complete the
programming for other RC systems. The results obtained to date for RC wall systems are very promising but
further testing and developments are needed to prove the softwares efficiency.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Italian Department of Civil Protection through the
financing of the 2009-2011 framework programme established with the European Centre for Training and
Research in Earthquake Engineering (EUCENTRE).

References
[1] Calvi GM., Displacement-Based Seismic Design of Reinforced Concrete Buildings, fib Bulletin, Lausanne, CH,2003.
[2] Calvi GM., Sullivan T.A Model Code for the Displacement-Based Seismic Design of Structures, IUSS Press, Italy,09.
[3] De Konig D., Pinho R., The effective use of computer in engineering design, MSc thesis, ROSE School, Italy, 2007.
[4] Seismosoft. SeismoStruct - A Computer Program for Static and Dynamic Nonlinear Analysis of Framed Structures,
available from URL: http://www.seismosoft.com, 2009
[5] Seismosoft, SeismoMatch A Computer Program for Spectrum Matching of Accelerograms, available from URL:
http://www.seismosoft.com, 2010.
[6] Priestley, M.J.N., Calvi, GM., Kowalsky, M.J., Displacement Based Seismic Design of Structures, IUSS Press,
Italy,07.