Seismic demands of steel buildings with perimeter and spatial moment resisting frames

The linear and nonlinear responses of steel buildings with perimeter moment resisting frames (pmrfs) are estimated andcompared to those of equivalent buildings with spatial moment resisting frames (smrfs). the equivalent models with smrfsare designed by using an approximated procedure in such a way that, not only their fundamental period, total mass and lateralstiffness are fairly the same as those of the corresponding buildings with pmrfs, but also other characteristics to make thetwo structural as equivalent as possible. the numerical study indicates that the interstory shears of the pmrfs building maybe significantly larger than those of the smrfs building. the main reasons for this are that the buildings with pmrfs arestiffer and that the dynamics properties of the two types of structural systems are different. the interstory displacements aresimilar for both structural systems in many cases. for some other cases, however, they are larger for the model with smrfs,depending upon the closeness between the earthquake corner periods and the periods of the buildings. the global ductility andstory ductility demands are larger for the buildings with pmrfs, implying that, since larger ductility demands are imposed,the detailing of the connections will have to be more stringent than for the buildings with smrfs. it can be concluded, that theseismic performance of the steel buildings with smrfs may be superior to that of steel buildings with pmrfs. the findings ofthis paper are for the particular models used in the study. much more research is needed to reach more general conclusions