Response of Steel Moment and Braced Frames Subjected to Near-Source Pulse-Like Ground Motions by Including Soil-Structure Interaction Effects

Most seismic regulations are usually associated with fixed-base structures, assuming that elimination of this phenomenon leads to conservative results and engineers are not obliged to use near-fault earthquakes. This study investigates the effect of soil–structure interaction on the inelastic response of MDOF steel structures by using well known Cone method. In order to achieve this, three dimensional multi-storey steel structures with moment and braced frame are analysed using non-linear time history method under the action of 40 near-fault records. Seismic response parameters, such as base shear, performance of structures, ductility demand and displacement demand ratios of structures subjected to different frequency-contents of near-fault records including pulse type and high-frequency components are investigated. The results elucidate that the flexibility of soil strongly affects the seismic response of steel frames. Soil–structure interaction can increase seismic demands of structures. Also, soil has approximately increasing and mitigating effects on structural responses subjected to the pulse type and high frequency components. A threshold period exists below which can highly change the ductility demand for short period structures subjected to near-fault records.