Buildings with Rigid Walls and Flexible Roof Diaphragms. II: Evaluation of a New Seismic Design Approach Based on Distributed Diaphragm Yielding

A seismic collapse evaluation study of buildings with rigid walls and flexible roof diaphragms (RWFD) presented in the companion paper indicates that this type of structure, as designed to current seismic design provisions in the United States, does not satisfy FEMA P695 performance criteria for Risk Category II Buildings. The seismic performance of RWFD buildings is often characterized by large deformations and yielding in the roof diaphragm …