Seismic behavior of eccentrically braced frames designed by standard computational analyses

The paper shows the results of the analysis of the seismic behavior of eccentrically braced frames (EBFs) designed according to the force-based approach, by means of either static or modal analysis and complying with the capacity design principles. The research is mainly focused on the investigation of the structural behavior at collapse and aims at evaluating the ability of the examined EBFs to develop global collapse mechanisms characterized by a remarkable exploitation of the inelastic deformation capacity of links. On the basis of the numerical results the study also permits a critical analysis of the values of the behavior factor generally proposed by building codes with reference to such a structural typology. Incremental dynamic analyses are carried out with reference to frames having different dynamic and mechanical properties and with reference to a set of ten artificially generated accelerograms compatible with the elastic response spectrum.