Combined seismic base shear and torsional loading provisions in the 1990 edition of the National Building Code of Canada

Abstract

This paper evaluates the earthquake-resistant design provisions of the 1990 edition of the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC 1990) for asymmetric building structures subjected to combined lateral shear and torsional dynamic loadings arising from earthquake base excitation. A detailed parametric study is presented, evaluating the dynamic edge displacement response in the elastic range, for the side of the building which is adversely affected by lateral–torsional coupling. A series of buildings is studied, with realistic ranges of the fundamental natural period, structural eccentricity, and uncoupled frequency ratio. These buildings are evaluated under base loadings arising from a total of 45 strong motion records taken from earthquakes in North America, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East, and Southern Pacific, categorized according to site soil conditions and the ratio a/v of peak ground acceleration to velocity. The latter parameter together with the uncoupled lateral period are found to influence strongly the combined dynamic edge response, with the greatest forces on edge members arising from earthquakes with high a/v ratio in structures with natural periods below 0.8 s. In this case the NBCC 1990 loading provisions significantly underestimate the elastic dynamic response. For buildings with periods longer than 0.8 s, the conservatism of the base shear provisions leads to overestimation of combined dynamic edge response in asymmetric systems, and this is also true in the short-period range for buildings subjected to ground motions with low a/v ratio. The NBCC 1990 provisions are reasonably conservative for short-period systems subjected to ground motions with intermediate a/v ratio. Key words: earthquakes, seismic, design, response, spectra, base, shear, torsional, provisions.