Influence of structural cracking in the seismic response of irregular buildings

The authors present an investigation on the influence of cracking as a structural response due to a seismic event. The main objective is to determine the impact that cracking has in the seismic response of irregular buildings, and the importance of including inertia-reducing factors in the design of buildings. First, it is proposed to estimate the inertia-reducing factor of the beams, columns and cracked walls from their moment-curvature diagrams. Once those are determined, a comparative analysis will be performed between the seismic responses of regular and irregular buildings of different heights taking into account their gross and effective rigidness. Subsequently, when analyzing the drifts of the buildings with cracked structural elements, a variation of up to 59% with regard to the non-cracked ones. This is a very high percentage that directly influences the considerations indicated in the designing codes. To summarize, it is of high importance to consider the inertia-reducing factors during the structural design process.