Strength and stiffness distributions of torsional building systems

Torsional response characteristics of building models of elastic and inelastic asymmetric reinforced concrete buildings were studied by analyzing the near-fault and far-fault ground motions recorded during earthquakes. The strength and stiffness eccentricities are the main parameters used in the present study contributing to the strength and stiffness distributions of building models. The displacement demands of all buildings under the stiff and flexible sides were obtained from the analysis due to different values of fundamental period of vibrations as well as behavior factors by using RUAUMOKO-3D program. All data were then summarized in accordance to the strength and stiffness distributions in order to determine the impact of either strength distribution or stiffness distribution to the torsional behavior of one-story asymmetric reinforced concrete buildings. The torsional behavior of all building models were presented in terms of the normalized displacements at the stiff and flexible sides by the ratio of the maximum lateral displacement at the stiff and flexible sides to the maximum lateral displacement at the center of the building models. The results of this study indicate that the torsional behavior of asymmetric reinforced concrete buildings were mainly depend on the stiffness distributions of lateral load resisting elements in the buildings rather than the strength distributions