Model Type Effects on the Estimated Seismic Response of a 20-Story Steel Moment Resisting Frame

Finite-element models of varying sophistication may be employed to determine a building’s seismic response with increasing complexity, potentially offering higher fidelity at the cost computational load. To account for this effect on reliability performance assessment, model-type uncertainty needs incorporated as distinct related given model’s parameters. At present, only placeholder values are available in guidelines. Instead, we attempt quantify them accurately modern 20-story steel moment-resisting frame. Different types three-dimensional (3D), two-dimensional (2D) multibay, and 2D single-bay multidegree-of-freedom investigated, together their equivalent single-degree-of-freedom ones, evaluate model dependency both within each broad category, well among different categories. In conclusion, ensemble recommended category showing that perfectly-symmetric perimeter-frame P-Δ sensitive building under investigation, stemming from 3D versus or distributed lumped plasticity is lower than governing record-to-record variability.