Seismic response of single-storey steel buildings: role of design criteria.

Italian and European codes allow constructions in seismic areas to be designed with either dissipative or elastic structural behaviour. In the first case, the concept of capacity design is the basis of structural dimensioning; both strength and ductility verifications are required. In the second case, structural elements are designed to remain in the elastic field under the assigned design seismic input; ductility verifications are not enforced. These two design approaches might lead to very different seismic performances depending on the role of the non-ductile elements and connections in the elastic design. In fact, the non-ductile elements and connections might represent a source of weakness and lead to premature failures. In the present work, critical issues related with the modelling of the post-elastic behaviour of a non-dissipative single-storey industrial steel structure are discussed and comparisons are made with the same structure designed with dissipative structural behaviour.