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This work deals with seismic protection of steel building structures using hysteretic energy dissipators. The sensitivity of the performance of these systems to the design parameters of the dissipative devices is numerically investigated. Particularly, the influence of the vertical distribution of the yielding forces of the dissipators is deeply examined; two major approaches are compared. Comparison is established in terms of the response of a 15-story steel building subjected to the Lorca earthquake. Initial results seem to indicate little sensitivity of that response to the design yielding forces of the dissipators.

A number of short-to-mid height RC buildings with wide beams have been constructed in moderate-seismicity areas of Spain. The seismic behavior in the direction of the wide beams appears to be deficient because of low lateral strength, low ductility of the wide beams, big strut compressive forces inside the column-beam connections, and unreliable contribution of the spandrel zones of the wide beams. In the orthogonal direction, the behavior is worse since only the joists and the façade beams contribute to the lateral resistance. The objective is to assess the seismic capability of these structures; further research will involve proposing retrofit strategies. The research approach consists of selecting a number of representative buildings and evaluating their vulnerability by code-type, push-over and dynamic analyses. The cooperation of the masonry infill walls is accounted for. The main conclusion is that the seismic behavior of these buildings is inadequate in most of the situations.