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Basics of Seismic Design, Part 2 – Why Don’t We Design a Structure to Respond
Elastically to Design Earthquake Ground Motion?
Posted Date: 05 Aug 2015
In our last blog, we discussed earthquake forces and how a structure responds to them, elastically or
inelastically. With this blog, we would like to explain why the building code allows structures to be designed
for inelastic response to the design earthquake of the code.
It is generally uneconomical and also unnecessary to design a structure to respond in the elastic range to the
maximum earthquake-induced inertia forces. The design seismic horizontal forces recommended by codes,
including the 2012 IBC, are generally less than the elastic response inertia forces induced by a major
earthquake (in the case of the 2012 IBC, the design earthquake ground motion is defined in Section 1613).
Experience has shown that structures designed to the level of seismic horizontal forces recommended by
codes can survive major earthquake shaking. This is largely because of the ability of well-designed structures
to undergo inelastic deformations in certain localized regions of certain members. The use of the level of
seismic design forces recommended by codes implies that while the critical regions are deforming
inelastically, the structure should have sufficient inelastic deformability to enable it to survive without
collapse when subjected to several cycles of loading well into the inelastic range. Inelastic deformability is
the ability of a structure to continue to carry full factored gravity loads as it deforms laterally beyond the
range of elastic response.
Inelastic deformability requires avoidance of all forms of brittle failure and yielding of certain localized
regions of certain members (or of connections between members) in flexure, shear, or axial action. This is
precisely why the materials chapters of codes (Chapters 19, 21, 22 and 23 of the 2012 IBC) contain detailing
requirements and other limitations that go hand-in-hand with the code-prescribed seismic forces. The design
earthquake forces of the code (Chapter 16 of the IBC) and the detailing requirements and other restrictions of
the materials chapters are an integral package.
Figure 1 shows the idealized force-displacement relationship of a particular structure subject to the design
earthquake of the 2012 IBC, as defined in Section 1613. On the y-axis are the earthquake-induced forces;
along the x-axis are the earthquake-induced displacements. The curve may be thought of as the envelope of
hysteretic force-displacement loops that describe the response of a structure subjected to reversed cyclic
displacement histories of the type imposed by earthquake ground motion. Hysteresis means the reaction of a
system to changes is dependent upon its past reactions to change.
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Figure 1: Idealized foce-displacement relationship of a structure subject to the
design earthquake of the 2012 IBC.
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