Seismic demand of an RC special moment frame building

Seismic design of a building is usually performed by using a linear static procedure. However, the actual behavior of a building subjected to earthquake is inelastic and dynamic in nature, and inelastic dynamic analysis is required to evaluate the safety of the structure designed by the current design codes. In this study, an RC special moment‐resisting frame building was designed by IBC 2003. Maximum plastic rotation, dissipated energy of some selected members, and the drift demand were calculated to examine whether the inelastic behavior of the building followed the intention of the design code. In addition, the effect of internal moment‐resisting frames (gravity load resisting system) on resisting lateral load was investigated. According to the analysis result, the building designed by IBC 2003 showed the inelastic behavior intended in the code and satisfied the design drift limit. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.