Non-linear dynamic and push-over analysis of an Air Traffic Control tower

Abstract

Airport is one of the vital metropolitan organizations that should be endured totally practicable during and after urban calamity such as seismic threat. Principally different types of assistance from other cities could be needed for the sufferers, so the high significance of airports cannot be neglected. Likewise, all airports require one or more Air Traffic Control (ATC) towers which are compulsory to be serviceable. Designers often apply linear structural analysis methods for most ATC towers. However, this application may give not reliable results. The reason is that during an earthquake, nonlinear response of ATC tower is very feasible. Since usual techniques may face to a stark misguide from factual behavior of the structure for analyzing such particular structure an accurate nonlinear analysis is strongly essential. This study investigates the seismic behavior of Oroumieh ATC tower which is located in Iran rises 30 meter above ground level using Non-linear static analysis (Push-Over Method) and non-linear dynamic analysis (Time History Method). This also assesses the effect of Near-Field (distance from fault to structure below 15 km) and Far-Field earthquakes (distance from fault to structure above 15 km) on the seismic behavior of the case study structure and compares the obtained results with the code-based seismic design and concludes on the safety level of ATC towers designed based on building codes. In this study, fifteen Far-field and fifteen Near-Field ground motion records will be selected based on characteristics of the construction site. Nonlinear analysis will be carried out with SAP2000 software. Concentration will be given to the evaluation of code-based design of ATC towers and their capability in satisfying the ATC tower’s safety during earthquakes. It is found that the effect of far-field records are more critical than near-field. Besides that, time history results are higher than linear analysis based on codes and push-over results are found in between linear analysis and time-history analysis.