Abstract
This paper aims to identify and analyze the advantages and disadvantages associated with building plan shape considering engineering and architectural needs and to quantify them in terms of the common language of costs and benefits. Parameters that measure the overall seismic response of a given plan shape were defined. Seismic behavior of the irregular shapes can be improved by means of special engineering efforts that provide enough in-plane slab stiffness and a distribution of lateral stiffness and strength so that torsion and distortion can be minimized. The proposed procedure of integral evaluation of buildings was applied to two specific examples, one regular and one irregular building, both with similar characteristics. The irregular building was seismically adequate by means of several dynamic analyses and a careful structural design so that it reached an acceptable level of seismic performance. For this example, the irregular building offers long-term benefits that exceed the initial investment required to improve its seismic behavior.
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