Influence of Ground Motion Selection on the Assessment of Steel Special Moment Frames

Abstract eng:
This paper quantifies the impact of using different ground motion selection methods to evaluate the seismic performance of steel special moment frames. Two methods are investigated: a “traditional” approach, herein referred to as the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) method, and a newer approach known as the conditional mean spectrum (CMS) method. Amongst other differences, the PEER method uses the risk-based maximum considered earthquake (MCER) as the target spectrum, while the CMS method uses the conditional mean spectrum. Two special moment frames (4- and 8-story) designed in accordance with ASCE/SEI 7-10, are used to represent archetype steel frame buildings on the West Coast of the United States. The seismic performance of these frames are assessed with the nonlinear dynamic procedure prescribed in ASCE/SEI 41-13, using ground motions selected and scaled in accordance with both methods. The performance of the buildings is evaluated at the Collapse Prevention (CP) performance level for a far-field site located in Los Angeles, CA. The two ground motion selection methods lead to different structural response predictions, where the ground motions selected and scaled using CMS can result in a smaller dispersion of the output parameters. These results provide motivation for building standards, such as ASCE/SEI 41, to advocate implementing the CMS method as an alternative ground motions selection approach. The results also shed light on the influence of the ground motion selection method in the design of new buildings using the performance-based seismic design methodology.

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