Comparison of the Reinforced-Concrete Seismic Provisions of the Design Codes of the United States, Colombia, and Ecuador for Low-Rise Frames

This paper presents a comparison between the seismic design provisions of the U.S. ASCE 7, the Colombian NSR-10, and the Ecuadorian NEC-2015 for the design of low-rise reinforced-concrete (RC) frames. The code provisions are compared, illustrating the main differences in the requirements for ductility, strength, and analysis for low-rise RC frames. A four-story building is designed according to each design code, and its performance is evaluated according to ASCE 41-13 using pushover and incremental dynamic analysis. In terms of code language, differences are observed in the strong column-weak beam requirement, the allowable drift limit, and the R and C d factors used by the codes. The results show that the NEC-2015 design is controlled by the strong column-weak beam requirement, while drift limit and strength are the controlling factors in the NSR-10 and ASCE 7 designs. The seismic performance evaluation shows adequate behavior of the three buildings, with columns in the NEC-2015 building showing a slightly better behavior.