Advances in rocking core-moment frame analysis.

The paper introduces a number of new analytic techniques and practical technologies that lead to the development of an efficient earthquake resistant system. The proposed structural system consists of a grade beam supported moment frame connected to a rigid rocking core through story level rigid links. The new system tends to bend and tilt as an upright simply supported beam with minimal uniform drift and prevents the formation of soft story failure within the moment frame. It is capable of preventing severe damage to its columns and footings and can be equipped to prevent catastrophic collapse due to strong ground motion and re-center itself afterwards. The analytic development is based on global, design led analysis and results in closed form, exact solutions that are highly suitable for preliminary, manual, as well as spread sheet computations. Several examples have been provided to verify and demonstrate the applications of the proposed formulations. All numerical results have been verified by independent computer analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]