Assesment of the behavior factor prescribed by the Ecuadorian Construction Code for steel framed structures

Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) has been applied lately in order to evaluate the maximum lateral strength of buildings under variable seismic intensity. This variation on intensity is achieved by means of the progressive scaling of the amplitudes of the dynamic signal imposed to the models of the buildings. This numerical procedure was used in order to assess the seismic performance, via the assessment of the behavior factor q (used in many seismic codes worldwide) of the recent version of the Ecuadorian Construction Code. Likewise, the used approach is based on the adaptation of the FEMA P-695 Methodology including issues like the seismic input selection and the definition of the collapse threshold. In order to perform the above mentioned assessment, a set of archetypes representatives of the design space have been defined. These archetypes were designed according three different procedures: acceleration-based and displacement-based procedures and an energy-based alternative procedure. Results depict that some of the adopted values for the behavior factor does not fulfill the requirements of the methodology used, so the design is not able to guarantee an adequate performance of the buildings when they withstand destructive earthquakes. (C) 2016 CIMNE (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya). Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U.