Assessment of Korean Seismic Design Practice for Low-rise Reinforced Concrete Wall-frame Buildings

Korean seismic design practice for ordinary reinforced concrete wall-frame buildings is similar to but a little different from the equivalent lateral force design procedure per ASCE 7. The specific feature of the Korean practice is not to separate the walls and frames into an independent structural system, but to analyze and design them simultaneously, while they are separated and then analyzed and designed individually if following ASCE 7. Therefore, the Korean practice is assessed by using the performance evaluation procedure presented in FEMA P695. The results showed that the Korean design practice is not always applicable to all RC wall-frame buildings with ordinary shear walls. This negative result is due to a significant reduction in the design moment of the walls. The reduced moment makes the thickness and vertical reinforcement of walls designed by the Korean practice significantly smaller than those by ASCE 7, while the frame member sizes are similar. If structural engineers want to keep using the same design practice, appropriate methods to offset the significant reduction in the design moment should be incorporated such as reducing the R-factor or limiting reduction in the design moment.