CCEER-19-05: Four Canonical Steel Moment Frame Buildings and Inter-Code Comparisons of Nonlinear Building Response

Abstract

This report summarizes recent work on the creation of contemporary seismic designs for four representative steel moment frame buildings and the development of nonlinear simulation models for these buildings. The buildings will serve as canonical structures for simulation-based evaluations of seismic risk and for understanding the complex interaction between near- and far- field earthquake ground motions and nonlinear building response. For this evaluation three different nonlinear finite element programs were utilized to facilitate an inter-code comparison of the nonlinear response of the buildings for both static push-over and dynamic earthquake ground motions. The inter-code comparisons provide a cross check on the model results from each code, and provide confidence building in terms of the correctness of the finite element input files.