Seismic Design of Steel Building Structures: A Half-Century Perspective
Chia-Ming Uang
Structural Engineering, University of California, San Diego
ABSTRACT: Seismic design of steel structures in the United States has made significant advances in the past half-century. The development can be broadly divided into three eras. Prior to 1985, the Uniform Building Code (UBC) provided limited design requirements, and these requirements were mainly “borrowed” from AISC plastic design requirements. The second era started with the 1988 UBC when both the ductility and capacity design concepts were introduced based on research conducted in the 1970s and 1980s. The beginning of the third era was marked by the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which profoundly impacted the research, design code development, and construction of not only moment frames but also other steel systems for seismic applications. Uang provides a historical overview and assessment of the development that lead to the modern ASCE 7 and AISC seismic design provisions.
