Effect of interior gravity framing system and composite floor slab action on the lifetime seismic risk assessment of steel frame buildings subjected to mainshock–aftershock sequence

Abstract

The structural analysis practices of steel moment-resisting frame buildings often neglect the participation of the interior gravity frames and composite floor slab action in their lateral strength and stiffness. In addition, the effects of aftershocks are frequently omitted in steel frame buildings’ seismic performance evaluations. This study investigates the effects of structural modeling assumptions and the incorporation of aftershocks on the seismic vulnerability and time-dependent lifetime seismic risk for a group of steel moment-resisting frame buildings. Three ductile steel moment-resisting frame buildings of four, eight, and twelve stories are examined in this study. The results indicate that the seismic performance of steel special moment-resisting frame buildings is substantially underestimated when based on structural models that ignore additional sources of lateral stiffness and strength owing to the interior gravity frame system and the composite floor slab action. In addition, when ignoring aftershocks from the seismic performance assessment, the possibility of catastrophic failure could be underestimated by a factor of 11 at the end of an assumed 50-year lifetime for the steel frame buildings, underscoring the need to account for aftershock effects in evaluating the collapse safety of the selected buildings.