ELASTIC AND INELASTIC ANALYSIS FOR WELD FAILURE PREDICTION OF 2 ADJACENT STEEL BUILDINGS

Two adjacent buildings near the epicenter of the January 17th Northrid ge earthquake, one with weld fractures and one without weld fractures, are considered in this research. Both buildings are six stories in he ight, and their primary lateral force resisting system comprises speci al moment resisting frames above grade. The buildings considered are r eferred to herein as the East Building and the West Building. Two basi c types of computer studies were performed. One was an elastic 3-D ana lysis using SAP90, and the other an inelastic 2-D analysis using DRAIN -2DX. Three different models were, created for the elastic analysis. T wo for the East Building, designated the 'benchmark model', and the 'p robable model', and one for the West Building, designated the 'West Bu ilding model'. Two different models were created for the inelastic ana lysis only for the East Building, also called the benchmark model and the probable model. The East Building was unoccupied at the time of th e earthquake, hence two models were created for this building. The ben chmark model is representative of the design state of the building, wh ile the probable model is representative of the state of the building at the time of the earthquake. The West Building, which was fully occu pied at the time of the earthquake, was modeled similarly to the bench mark. Elastic and inelastic studies were performed on these models to determine if a correlation exists between analysis and observed behavi or. The findings from the analysis showed no damage to the West Buildi ng with possible damage to the East Building. This result is corrobora ted by the damage survey.