Manual multi-support excitation

 

Once the displacement time-history record is obtained from an acceleration record, ground motion may be applied to specific support restraints through manual multi-support excitation, described as follows:

  1. At joints of interest, define a load pattern. This load pattern should apply unit values of joint displacement in the direction of applied acceleration.
  2. Restrain these joints only in the direction of loading.
  3. Create a time-history function which will describe variation of the joint displacements in time.
  4. Define a time-history load case which specifies both the displacement and the time function, as shown in Figure 1:

 

Figure 1: Definition of load case for multi-support excitation

 

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