Seismic Design Aspects of Vertically Irregular Reinforced Concrete Buildings

Seismic building codes such as the Uniform Building Code (UBC) do not allow the equivalent lateral force (ELF) procedure to be used for structures with vertical irregularities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the definition of irregular structures for different vertical irregularities: stiffness, strength, mass, and that due to the presence of nonstructural masonry infills. An ensemble of 78 buildings with various interstory stiffness, strength, and mass ratios is considered for a detailed parametric study. The lateral force-resisting systems (LFRS) considered are special moment-resisting frames (SMRF). These LFRS are designed based on the forces obtained from the ELF procedure. The results from linear and nonlinear dynamic analyses of these engineered buildings exhibit that most structures considered in this study performed well when subjected to the design earthquake. Hence, the restrictions on the applicability of the equivalent lateral force procedure are unnecessarily conservative for certain types of vertical irregularities considered.