Displacement-Based Design of Buildings with Torsion: Theory and Verification

Abstract

Direct displacement design (DDD) is a procedure that allows one to distribute the forces induced by an earthquake to the levels of a multistory building to ensure that the desired level of interstory drift is not exceeded. To date, DDD has only been applied to buildings that do not exhibit significant torsional response. This paper presents a methodology to perform displacement-based design (DBD) on multistory buildings with in-plane torsional irregularities, thereby generalizing DBD for buildings with torsion. The procedure includes decoupling the contribution of the deformation that results from translation and torsion by using an existing approximation technique. The approach is validated by using detailed finite-element models of asymmetric buildings; it is found to accurately reproduce the desired dynamic structural properties. Both linear and nonlinear (elastic-perfectly plastic) systems are demonstrated and the accuracy is verified. The method is shown to be very accurate for linear systems and slightly conservative for nonlinear systems.