Fundamental period of irregular moment‐resisting steel frame structures

The determination of the fundamental period of vibration of a structure is essential to earthquake design. Current code equations such as American Society of Civil Engineers Standard (ASCE) 7‐10 provide formulas for the approximate period of moment‐resisting frames (MRFs), which are dependent only on the height of the structure or number of stories. Such a formulation is overly conservative and unable to account for structures with geometric irregularities. This study investigated the fundamental periods of MRFs with varying geometric irregularities. The fundamental periods based on vibration theory for each example were compared with empirical equations, including current code equations as well as equations proposed in recent literature. New equations are proposed for the fundamental periods of MRFs, which take into account vertical and horizontal irregularities. Through statistical comparison, it was found that a three‐variable power model that is able to account for irregularities resulted in a better fit to the Rayleigh data than equations that were dependent on height only. The proposed equations were validated through a comparison of available measured period data for MRFs. They will allow design engineers to quickly estimate the fundamental period of MRF structures by taking into account irregularities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.