Drift demand predictions in low to moderate seismicity regions

This paper presents results obtained from a recent study that is aimed at assessing the drift demand on buildings for a range of projected earthquake scenarios in Australia. Parameters considered that may affect the response of buildings included building height, structural systems, and mass and stiffness distributions. It has been found that, for the range of buildings studied, the maximum angle of drift is 2.6-4.4 times the maximum response spectral displacement of the earthquake divided by the building height. This can be checked against the limiting drift capacity of the building to enable various levels of damage to be predicted for given earthquake scenarios.