Effect of inter-module connection stiffness on structural response of a modular steel building subjected to wind and earthquake load

Despite the increasing popularity of modular buildings, there are relatively few published case studies considering the overall structural responses to wind and earthquake load. As a result, there is limited structural performance data for the overall behaviour of modular buildings, which in turn impedes the development of appropriate design standards. At the same time, different inter-module connections exhibit different structural behaviours, and the overall response of a building assembled from interconnected modules may be influenced by the inter-module connection. However, the structural behaviours of inter-module connections in modular building structures subjected to lateral dynamic loads are not well known in the existing literature. This paper, therefore, presents a numerical investigation into the overall structural behaviour of a selected case study building. In particular, the moment-rotation and force-displacement behaviours of the inter-module connection were simplified, and incorporated in the overall structural model. The numerical technique was verified by comparison with a previous study, and the verified technique was then extended to the selected six storey case study building. The results showed that the overall response was affected by the inter-module connection stiffness, especially the translational stiffness in the along load direction.