Seismic performance of a 20‐story steel‐frame building in Canada

Abstract In performance‐based seismic design of a structure, the inelastic deformation demand of structural members or system is the primary input, whereas in conventional design procedure the input is the equivalent static loads to represent seismic effects. The National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) 2005 requires that for irregular and buildings higher than 60 m, dynamic analysis must be conducted to calculate seismic design forces and deflection, while for other cases, equivalent static loads can be used for the design. In this paper, the performance of a 20‐story steel moment resisting steel frame building, designed for western part of Canada, has been presented. Simulated and actual (scaled) ground motion records are used to evaluate the dynamic response. While NBCC does not provide any performance‐based design method, various techniques for displacement‐based design have been explored here in the context of the 20‐story building. A wide range of variation amongst these methods in terms of their application and results was found. Amongst these methods the direct displacement‐based design method seems to be more suitable for carrying out the performance‐based design of a building. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.