Seismic Performance of Semirigid Moment-Resisting Frames under Far and Near Field Records

The seismic performance of low-rise frames with energy dissipative semirigid connections is evaluated under far and near field artificial ground motion records. Four different connection capacities are employed in the frames and are characterized by two different moment-hardening ratios and two different hysteresis models. Nonlinear time-history and Fourier analyses are utilized to assess the seismic performance of 24 semirigid and 2 rigid frames. In the nonlinear time-history analyses, nine far field and nine near field artificial ground motion records generated from three different attenuation relations are used. Finally, the seismic performance of the rigid frames and the semirigid frames are compared, and the conditions under which the semirigid frames show better seismic performance than rigid frames are investigated. The results show that 25 of 26 sample frames satisfy all acceptance criteria and exhibit reliable seismic performance. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0000455. (C) 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.