Displacement-based seismic design of buildings—application

The displacement-based seismic design method is applied to the design of a two-storey and an eight-storey building having concentrically braced steel frames as the lateral load resisting system. To the authors' knowledge, this marks the first application of this method to the seismic design of (steel) buildings. Displacement spectra for design are generated numerically from appropriate earthquake accelerograms. The buildings are designed to have both elastic and inelastic responses in the design earthquake. The influence of torsion due to an asymmetric building layout, column shortening, and higher vibration modes, is addressed. Nonlinear static and dynamic time history analyses are used to assess the seismic response. The displacement-based design method is shown to be a viable alternative to the current spectral acceleration-based design approach.