An Overview of the Seismic Elastic Response Spectra and Their Application According to Mexican, U.S., and International Building Codes

The design of earthquake-resistant structures by applying traditional or performance-based seismic analysis methods involves two large variables: the seismic risk of the area and the physical characteristics of the structure. Before analyzing any building, it is required to determine the seismicity in the location to evaluate the accelerations that the structure must withstand by deterministic or probabilistic methods. The typical results of a seismic study are the uniform hazard spectra in the rock layer related to a specific return period and structural damping. The building codes use different methods to obtain the elastic response spectra, seeking to offer simple procedures by using parametric factors to consider the soil type; however, the procedure tends to return conservative estimates. On the other hand, site-specific spectra offer accurate and less conservative acceleration values, with the disadvantage of an extensive and costly mathematical process, justifying their application mostly to important structures. This review article gives the state of the art of seismic elastic response spectra using probabilistic seismic hazard maps as inputs, taking into account the importance of the structure and the soil type, according to Mexican, U.S., and international building codes.