A special purpose computer program for the linear three dimensional analyses of building structures for gravity, lateral and earthquake loads, called BUILDS-A,is presented in this paper. The building is idealized as an assemble of a series of rectangular frame or frame-shear wall substructures interconnected through a rigid floor diaphragm. Non-symmetric,non-rectangular building structures which have frames and frame-shear walls located arbitrary in plan can be considered. The static loads may be combined with a lateral earthquake input which is specified as a time dependent ground acceleration or as an acceleration spectrum response. Three dimensional frequencies and mode shapes are evaluated.
This program has two unique features, i.e.(1) the use of rectangular plate element with cut-outs for the analysis of perforated shear wall and (2) the structural analysis model for the gravity loads which takes the construction sequence into account.
The program also utilizes the special characteristics of the building structures such as a building consists of mostly vertical and horizontal members of identical dimensions. Therefore, input data preparation can be minimized and a significant reduction in computational efforts can be resulted. This program also provides computer graphics for checking the input data and more efficient interpretation of the results.
