Seismic response of RC frames with a soft first story retrofitted with hysteretic dampers under near-fault earthquakes Mota-Páez, Santiago Escolano-Margarit, David Benavent-Climent, Amadeo energy dissipation energy-based design metallic damper near-fault earthquake soft story Reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures with open first stories and masonry infill walls at the upper stories are very common in seismic areas. Under strong earthquakes, most of the energy dissipation demand imposed by the earthquake concentrates in the first story, and this eventually leads the building to collapse. A very efficient and cost-effective solution for the seismic upgrading of this type of structure consists of installing hysteretic dampers in the first story. This paper investigates the response of RC soft-story frames retrofitted with hysteretic dampers subjected to near-fault ground motions in terms of maximum displacements and lateral seismic forces and compares them with those obtained by far-field earthquakes. It is found that for similar levels of total seismic input energy, the maximum displacements in the first story caused by near-fault earthquakes are about 1.3 times larger than those under far-field earthquakes, while the maximum inter-story drift in the upper stories and the distribution and values of the lateral forces are scarcely affected. It is concluded that the maximum displacements can be easily predicted from the energy balance of the structure by using appropriate values for the parameter that reflects the influence of the impulsivity of the ground motion: the so-called equivalent number of cycles. 2024-02-09T07:58:24Z 2024-02-09T07:58:24Z 2021-02-01 journal article MOTA-PÁEZ, Santiago; ESCOLANO-MARGARIT, David; BENAVENT-CLIMENT, Amadeo. Seismic response of RC frames with a soft first story retrofitted with hysteretic dampers under near-fault earthquakes. Applied Sciences, 2021, vol. 11, no 3, p. 1290. https://hdl.handle.net/10481/88769 https://doi.org/10.3390/app11031290 eng Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity research project reference MEC BIA2017 88814 R http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional MDPI