This paper presents a comparison between the seismic design provisions of the U.S. ASCE 7, the Colombian NSR-10, and the Ecuadorian NEC-2015 for the design of low-rise reinforced-concrete (RC) frames. The code provisions are compared, illustrating the main differences in the requirements for ductility, strength, and analysis for low-rise RC frames. A four-story building is designed according to each design code, and its performance is evaluated according to ASCE 41-13 using pushover and incremental dynamic analysis. In terms of code language, differences are observed in the strong column-weak beam requirement, the allowable drift limit, and the R and C d factors used by the codes. The results show that the NEC-2015 design is controlled by the strong column-weak beam requirement, while drift limit and strength are the controlling factors in the NSR-10 and ASCE 7 designs. The seismic performance evaluation shows adequate behavior of the three buildings, with columns in the NEC-2015 building showing a slightly better behavior.

No abstract

Architectural configurations of reinforced concrete (RC) wall buildings force the connection of structural walls with beams, slabs and adjacent walls to distribute habitational spaces, generating interaction between those structural elements that results in a coupled structural system. Studies on resisting planes of RC buildings damaged during 2010 Chile earthquake suggest that the behavior of structural walls was highly influenced by the interaction of the resisting plane with the rest of the structure. Furthermore, researchers have identified 7the high levels of axial load as one of the principal causes of the observed wall damage on these buildings, and that a significant amount of this load comes from the seismic demands. However, there is uncertainty about how different coupling elements contribute to the seismic demands in RC walls. In this work, the seismic demands of axial load, shear and moment of RC walls are estimated from three buildings damaged during the 2010 earthquake using detailed finite element models that consider their three-dimensional layout. the contribution of coupling elements to the seismic demands of the studied RC walls is determined. Additionally, the effects of the assumed stiffness of structural elements over the seismic demands is evaluated. The results show that slabs have the largest contribution to the seismic axial load in walls, contributing with more that 90%, followed by adjacent walls and connecting beams. Furthermore, the obtained moment and shear diagrams of the studied walls are significantly different than those of cantilever walls, and it was found that the assumed stiffness of structural elements exerts an important effect on the prediction of the seismic demands in RC walls.