During strong ground shaking structures often become inelastic and respond hysteretically. Therefore, in this study some hysteretic models commonly used in seismic structural analysis are studied. In particular the characteristics of a popular endochronic model proposed by Bouc and Wen are examined in detail. In addition, analytical expressions have also been developed for most commonly used bilinear model as well as another model, herein called as the hyperbolic model.</p> / Master of Science