The effect of mass eccentricity on the torsional response of building structures

The effect of earthquake induced torsion, due to mass eccentricities, is investigated with the objective of providing practical design guidelines for minimizing the torsional response of building structures. Current code provisions recommend performing three dimensional static or dynamic analyses, which involve shifting the centers of the floor masses from their nominal positions to what is called an accidental eccentricity. This procedure however may significantly increase the design cost of multistory buildings, due to the numerous possible spatial combinations of mass eccentricities and it is doubtful whether such a cost would be justifiable. This paper addresses this issue on a theoretical basis and investigates the torsional response of asymmetric multistory buildings in relation to their behavior when all floor masses lie on the same vertical line. This approach provides an insight on the overall seismic response of buildings and reveals how the torsional response of a structure is influenced by an arbitrary spatial combination of mass eccentricities. It also provides practical guidelines of how a structural configuration may be designed to sustain minor torsion, which is the main objective of any practicing engineer. A parametric study is presented on 9-story common building types having a mixed-type lateral load resisting system (frames, walls, coupled wall bents) and representative heightwise variations of accidental eccentricities.