Quantification of the Impact of Detailing on the Performance and Cost of RC Shear Wall Buildings in Regions with High Uncertainty in Seismicity Hazards

This paper aims to quantify the impact of lateral force resisting system detailing on the performance and cost of RC shear wall buildings in regions with high uncertainty in seismicity. Six archetype buildings are designed and detailed as per the IBC’12. The results showed lower collapse margin ratios for the ordinary detailing, which indicates poorer performance as suggested by engineering intuition. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that opting to utilize special RC shear walls substantially improves the structural response. The marginal initial cost increase associated with special detailing is considerably outweighed by the resulting savings in the repair and downtime costs.