Journals Proceedings

Abstract

Nonstructural elements of a building are usually not contributing elements in the resisting system. Accordingly, they are not given the proper attention in the structural design process. However, non-structural elements attract seismic forces and thus are subjected to damage and failure during seismic events resulting in psychological and economic implications in some critical and lifelines structures. This paper reviews and evaluates the seismic design force recommended by different international design codes. It aims at evaluating seismic safety of non-structural elements and its governing factors. Response spectrum and time history are used to simulate seismic ground motion excitation. Building is modeled as a 3D finite element model using ETABS program. The building response behavior is considered linear elastic. A parametric study is carried out considering multi-story buildings with different heights. The considered parameters include: building height, ground motion excitation variation, dynamic building characteristics, non-structural elements dynamic characteristics (mass and stiffness), and location of the non-structural elements through the building height. Considerable variations in values of seismic force between empirical code calculations and forces resulting from dynamic analysis of this study are reported.