• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.171-180
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• 2005

In this study the seismic performance of a three-story knee-braced moment-resisting frame (KBMRF), which is typically employed to support pipelines for oil or gas, was investigated. Nonlinear static pushover analyses were performed first to observe the force-displacement relationship of KBMRF under increasing seismic load. The results show that, when the maximum inter-story drift reached 1.5% of the story height, the main structural members, such as beams and columns, still remained elastic. Then nonlinear dynamic time-history analyses were carried out using eight earthquake ground motion time-histories scaled to at the design spectrum of UBC-97. It turned out that the maximum inter-story drift was smaller than the drift limit of 1.5 % of the structure height, and that the columns remained elastic. Based on these analytical results, it can be concluded that the seismic performance of the structure satisfies all the requirements regulated in the seismic code.