Abstract
A general evaluation of some points of the South American seismic codes is presented herein, comparing them among themselves and with the American Standard ASCE/SEI 7/10 and with the European Standard Eurocode 8. The study is focused in design criteria for buildings. The Western border of South America is one of the most seismically active regions of the World. It corresponds to the confluence of the South American and Nazca plates. This region corresponds roughly to the vicinity of the Andes Mountains. This seismicity diminishes in the direction of the comparatively seismically quieter Eastern South American areas. The South American countries located in its Western Border possess standards for seismic design since some decades ago, being the Brazilian Standard for seismic design only recently published. This study is focused in some critical topics: definition of the recurrence periods for establishing the seismic input; definition of the seismic zonation and design ground motion values; definition of the shape of the design response spectra; consideration of soil amplification, soil liquefaction and soil-structure interaction; classification of the structures in different importance levels; definition of the seismic force-resisting systems and respective response modification coefficients; consideration of structural irregularities and definition of the allowable procedures for the seismic analyses. A simple building structure is analyzed considering the criteria of the several standards and obtained results are compared.
Highlights
The newly established Working Group 7 (WG7 - Earthquake Resistant Structures) of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE) has proposed, inside its Field of Activities and Objectives, studies of comparisons among seismic codes, in order to find out discrepancies and similarities among them, as well as to identify and fulfil gray areas of knowledge
This paper is aligned with this objective of the WG7, presenting an general evaluation of some points of the South American seismic codes, comparing these codes among themselves and confronted with the American Standard ASCE/SEI 7/10 [1] and with the Standard for the European Community, the Eurocode 8 [2]
This study is focused in some critical topics: definition of the recurrence periods for establishing the seismic input; definition of the seismic zonation and respective design seismic ground motion values; definition of the shape of the design response spectra; consideration of soil amplification, criteria for soil liquefaction and for the consideration of soil-structure interaction; classification of the structures in different importance levels; definition of the considered seismic force-resisting systems and respective adopted response modification coefficients; consideration of structural irregularities and definition of the allowable procedures for the seismic analyses, among other comparisons that could be performed in this type of comparative study
Summary
The newly established Working Group 7 (WG7 - Earthquake Resistant Structures) of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE) has proposed, inside its Field of Activities and Objectives, studies of comparisons among seismic codes, in order to find out discrepancies and similarities among them, as well as to identify and fulfil gray areas of knowledge. The Western border of the continent is one of the most seismically active regions of the World; it corresponds to the confluence of the South American and Nazca plates. This region corresponds roughly to the vicinity of the Andes Mountains, present from North to South extremities of the continent. This seismicity diminishes in the direction of the comparatively seismically quieter Eastern South American areas, located in the centre of a stable intraplate region. The South American countries located in the Western Border of the continent possess standards for seismic design since some decades ago (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina). Studies already presented by the authors in another paper, Santos et al [10]
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