Design of reinforced concrete frames with damage control

A reinforced concrete frame design methodology to control damage indices in structural elements and keep them within tolerable limits is presented. The structural element strengths are determined to satisfy the basic design goal, which requires elastic behavior during moderate earthquakes and inelastic behavior with tolerable damage during strong earthquakes. Maximum lateral displacement and plastic dissipated energy are used as design parameters. The method uses several inelastic static analyses to optimize the strength of the structural elements in order to satisfy the adopted damage indices. The proposed method was applied to a six-floor framed structure, representative of an actual building, and the expected solution was achieved after two optimization cycles. The structure designed with the proposed method was subjected to eight earthquake acceleration records. Its response was determined from inelastic dynamic analysis. The resulting damage indices were similar to those assumed in the design, which confirm the accuracy of the proposed method.