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3 Design of Structural Framing Systems
1.3.1 Procedures for Component Evaluation
Below is an introduction to procedures that are used for proportioning reinforced concrete cross
sections for gravity and lateral loads. For additional information, refer to Chapter 2 of Wight.
1.3.2 Allowable Stress Design (ASD)
Allowable Stress Design (ASD), which is also known as Working Stress Design, has been used
for structural engineering analysis for more than 150 years. Best estimates of maximum loads are
applied to a linearly elastic model of a structure for the calculation of member stresses (for steel)
or stresses in concrete and rebar (in reinforced concrete). The member stresses are required to be
less than service values (e.g., 0.6Fy for a steel component) that are established for each material
for different actions (axial, bending, shear, torsion).
The ASD method has a significant number of shortcomings. First, the reliability of the design (or
safety index) is unknown. Second, no account is taken of the uncertainties in the loads, that is,
how accurate are the estimates of the dead and live loads. Third, member stresses provide little
information on the capacity of a component and the structure to resist the applied loads. In
modern reinforced concrete design, allowable stresses are rarely used: deflection calculations
under service loads being one exception. We will not use the ASD procedure to proportion cross
sections in this course.
1.3.3 Strength Design (SD) or Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD)
Strength Design (SD) or LRFD is routinely used for the design of reinforced concrete structures
and is used by many engineers for the design of steel structures (although ASD persists in many
parts of the US). Loads are factored to calculate an ultimate load, where the load factors are
based on a statistical interpretation of measured conditions and thus reflect plausible variations in
the loads (i.e., maximum values) from the mean estimates of the loads. Load factors are greater
for live loads than dead loads for example. The ultimate load is then applied to a linearly elastic
model of the structure to calculate component actions. Component capacities (i.e., axial, flexure,
shear) are calculated assuming some inelastic behavior of the cross section. Note the use of a
non-linear stress block (although the shape is simplified to facilitate calculation of the strength of
the cross section).
The SD procedure is more rational than the ASD procedure. Uncertainties in the loads are
considered through the use of load factors and load combinations. Some load factors from ACI-
318-14 are presented below. Contrast these combinations with those of ASD. The consequences
of failure can be considered more directly through the use of capacity reduction (phi) factors,
with small values of phi assigned to undesirable failure modes (e.g., 0.9 for flexure and 0.75 for
shear). Note however that the analysis assumes linearly elastic response but that component
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capacities are calculated at the strength level, which implies some measure of inelastic response
in the cross section.
• Moment redistribution in beams as an example
Sample load factors from Table 5.3.1 of ACI 318-14
U = 1.4D
U = 1.2D +1.6L + 0.5(Lr , S, W )
U = 1.2D +1.0E +1.0L + 0.2S
U = 0.9D +1.0W
U = 0.9D +1.0E
1.3.4 Capacity Design
Capacity design is used to prevent undesirable failure mechanisms, for example, a beam failing
in shear (a brittle mode of failure) before it fails in flexure (a ductile mode of failure), and a
column failing in flexure (compromising the gravity load system) before the beams framing into
the column fail in flexure. Many have attributed capacity design to expert engineers in New
Zealand in the 1970s but such an approach was first proposed, to my knowledge, by Blume,
Newmark, Corning, and Sozen in the late 1950s (see Design of Multistory Reinforced Concrete
Buildings for Earthquake Motions published in 1961).
The figure to the right (courtesy of J. P.
Moehle) provides summary information Capacity Design
on capacity design. The example is for a 1. Flexural yield mode 5. Determine resulting forces
2. Design for flexure V
cantilever reinforced concrete beam u Vp Vp
where the objective is to prevent shear
failure of the beam. Key steps in the Mp
procedure are as follows: Mu φMn Mu
6. Design to avoid failures other
than selected mechanism
1. Select the desired failure 3. Detail for ductile response
mechanism, which is usually M Mp
flexure in reinforced concrete φMn
construction. Why?
curvature
4. Estimate overstrength.
2. Proportion the component (beam)
for that failure mechanism using strength design for the factored loads and detail the
component for ductile response. (We will discuss how to do this later in the semester.)
3. Determine the probable strength of the cross section by analysis accounting for actual sizes
and selected rebar, which may be larger than that required to resist the effects of factored
loads. (We will learn how to do this in Module 3.) In the figure above, the probable
strength is Mp that is substantially greater than the design strength.
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4. Determine the applied load required to produce the probable strength and design the
remainder of the component (i.e., for shear in the sample problem) so that the nominal
(shear) strength exceeds the actions associated with this back-calculated applied load.
1.3.5 Plastic Design
Plastic design is merely strength design using plastic analysis rather than linearly elastic analysis.
For plastic analysis, a mechanism is proposed and the plastic hinges are detailed for inelastic
response. Component strengths are calculated using SD. Undesirable failure modes are then
avoided using capacity design.
1.3.6 Recent Developments in Seismic Evaluation
The 1990s saw remarkable innovation in the practice of earthquake engineering. Force based
design procedures that had been used almost exclusively for 70 years started to give way to
displacement-based procedures that had been developed in principle by Sozen, Moehle, and
others in the 1970s and 1980s. It had long been recognized that code-compliant buildings and
bridges would undergo substantial inelastic deformation in a design earthquake. Given this
knowledge and the clear understanding that damage was related directly to deformations and not
forces, expert structural engineers have moved towards analysis, design (proportioning), and
evaluation based on estimates of displacements.
Displacement-based design (DBD) cannot be used alone as a design tool. Rather, a minimum
level of strength must be provided for service load conditions. However, DBD has seen
widespread acceptance in the past 5 years and this procedure now underpins much of the FEMA
273/274/356 and ASCE 41-13 that provide guidelines for the seismic rehabilitation of structures.
A very recent development (January 2013) is the publication of the FEMA P-58 Guidelines for
Performance-Based Seismic Design of Buildings (www.atcouncil.org). These Guidelines,
developed in part by research conducted at UB over the course of the past 12 years, enable the
calculation of seismic demands and losses in a probabilistic sense, where losses are presented in
terms of repair costs, indirect losses (business interruption) and casualties (deaths). These tools
represent a paradigm shift in structural engineering design practice.
https://www.structuralguide.com/performance-based-design/
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