Calculating the Seismic Design Force and

Seismic Base Shear for a Reinforced

Concrete Building Structure
May 15, 2017 Abdul Siraj, P.E.

In this post, I will go over the first seismic design example in our seismic design of
structures course covering the calculation of seismic forces. The goal of this
structural seismic design example is to calculate the seismic design force and
seismic base shear for a reinforced concrete building structure. We will use the
equivalent lateral force procedure.

Problem Description
The problem statement states,
Compute the design seismic force and seismic shear force for a structure given
the following information:
Building Material – Reinforced Concrete
Nature of Building Occupancy – Adult education facility
Basic Seismic Force Resisting System – Special moment-resisting frame
Number of Stories – 6
Story Heights – 12 ft (all stories)
Story Weights – 1600 Kips
Seismic Risk – High
Soil Class – B
Mapped maximum considered earthquake spectral response accelerations
at short periods, Ss – 1.5g
Mapped maximum considered earthquake spectral response accelerations
for 1-second period, S1 – 0.6g