Effect of Uplift on Behavior of Steel Structures and Response Modification Factors

In design of structures for applied loads, the common assumption is that the structure is tightly attached to its base, i.e. no vertical rigid-body motion can happen at the same place. During a major earthquake, the couple of axial forces associated with the overturning moment can overcome that of the gravity loads in lateral load bearing columns and result in an uplifted column. With a building losing some of its contact points to the ground, a reduced lateral stiffness can be expected. This in turn can result in a reduced seismic base shear. At the same time, the structural members around the uplifted part can undergo large local deformations and perhaps a more extensive seismic damage. Illuminating the above predictions is the incentive of this research. In this paper, in the numerical part, a number of steel frames having various numbers of stories and bays are studied in two cases of without uplift (fxed base) and with uplift. The methods of analysis are the non-linear static and dynamic analysis procedures.According to the fndings, the uplift phenomenon generally has an important role in changing the behavior of structure and reduction of its response. At the same time, it can result in locally increased damages that sometimes can add up to total failures. The results showed that uplift increases the structural period and the absorbed energy, and decreases the displacements of most parts of the structures and their internal forces.