Research on Cyclic Behavior and Design of Metal Buildings

Full-scale testing of a metal building was conducted to develop a seismic design procedure for metal buildings. Testing indicated that the system has high system overstrength and high deformability. A design procedure based on drift considerations is proposed. Drift capacity is calculated from routine design, and drift demand can be calculated from the design spectrum. A case study of 10 metal building frames designed in accordance with the current practice indicates that, for those cases where metal sidewalls were used, a safety factor of 1.4 can be achieved without increasing member sizes. When hard sidewalls are used, however, metal frames designed in accordance with the current design practice can be significantly undersized.