Seismic design of reinforced concrete framed buildings using energy-based amplification factors

Abstract

In current structural analysis elastic-based procedures are applied, computing the seismic forces by applying behavior factors which allow to take into account the inelastic characteristics of the structural response when they are subject to strong motions. This kind of analysis bring a set of elastic displacements that need to be amplified in order to compute the inelastic ones. The common procedure is done by using behavior factor-based amplification factors. These inelastic displacements lead to obtain the inter-storey drifts which are useful in order to evaluating the seismic sizing procedure. In this work a new sizing procedure is formulated, it is based on amplification factors obtained from energy balance procedures. The sizing procedure has been validated by means of a set of regular reinforced-concrete buildings designed according to EC-8, for a high seismic hazard level. These buildings have been studied by applying non linear dynamic analysis using synthetic accelerograms. Inter-storey drifts obtained from non linear analysis have been used in the assessment of the buildings' response through three Limit States. Results shown that all the cases studied satisfy the Limit States.