Previous earthquakes have clearly demonstrated that the damage to operational and functional components of buildings usually cause more injuries, fatalities, and property and financial loss than those inflicted by structural damage. Operational and functional components of a building include architectural components, mechanical and electrical equipment, and building contents. An important step towards ensuring the safe design of operational and functional components of buildings is to develop floor design response spectra. This constitutes the scope of the current research program described in this paper. A total of 6 buildings, consisting of 5, 10 and 15-story frame buildings were designed and analyzed to establish floor response spectra. The buildings were designed for Ottawa and Vancouver representing Eastern and Western Canadian seismicity. Fifteen artificially generated earthquake records (accelerograms) were used for each structure, compatible with the Uniform Hazard Response Spectra specified in the 2005 edition of the National Building Code of Canada. It was observed that the response amplifications relative to ground excitations varied from floor to floor, and were frequency dependent. Generally, the higher floors showed higher amplification with differences in spectra between the floors being more pronounced in low-rise buildings, as compared to medium and high-rise buildings. The acceleration floor response spectra for individual floors are presented in the paper with details of the analyses that led to their developments. Recommendations are made for design floor response spectra for reinforced concrete frame buildings in Canada.
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