Approximate methods to evaluate storey stiffness and interstory drift of RC buildings in seismic area

During preliminary design of a RC building located in a seismic area, having quick but reliable analytical measurement of interstory drifts and storey stiffnesses might be helpful in order to check the fulfillment of damage limit state and stiffness regularity in elevation required by seismic design codes. This paper presents two approximate methods, strongly interrelated each other, and addressed to achieve each of these two purposes for frame buildings. A brief description of some already existing methods addressed to the same aims is included to compare the main differences in terms of general approaches and assumptions. Both new approximate methods are then applied to 9 'ideal' frames and 2 'real' buildings designed according to the Italian seismic code. The results are compared with the 'exact' values obtained by the code-based standard calculation, performed via FEM models, showing a satisfactory range of accuracy. Compared with those by the other methods from literature, they indicate the proposed procedures lead to a better approximation of the objective structural parameters, especially for those buildings designed according to the modern 'capacity design' philosophy.