Study of Dynamic Behavior of a Three Story Model Frame

Recently earthquake has been occurred several times in many areas of Bangladesh at low to medium intensity. Major cities of Bangladesh are more or less vulnerable to earthquake. It is necessary to develop effective technique for minimizing the severity and often tragic consequences of earthquake. The universities & research institutes of Bangladesh are interested to enhance studies in earthquake engineering. But no facilities were developed to let the students & researchers sound about real earthquake shaking. So in order to develop the knowledge regarding earthquake among the students & researchers it is necessary to introduce a tool which will help them in realizing the earthquake shaking intensity and its vulnerability on different types of civil structure. There are several experimental techniques that can be used to test the response of structure under certain shaking intensity and to verify their seismic performance. One of the popular and efficient techniques is use of an earthquake shaking table. Structural properties (damping ratio, stiffness, natural frequency, natural period, mode shape) of a three story model frame and its deflection behavior under repetitive strong shaking is investigated through shaking table tests. Further effectiveness of various bracing system under multidirectional seismic excitation is analytically investigated also.