A comprehensive study on the seismic response of one-storey asymmetric systems

The non-linear seismic response of in-plan asymmetric systems has been extensively studied since the 1980s. Nevertheless, most of the research effort has been devoted to the study of specific asymmetric buildings and, even though relevant progresses have been achieved in the understanding of the complex translational-to-torsional coupled response of such systems, a complete understanding of the seismic behaviour of in-plan asymmetric buildings is still missing. In this paper a systematic study of the seismic response of linear and non-linear one-storey asymmetric structures is presented. A mixed analytical–numerical approach, the so-called “alpha” method, is used to investigate the non-linear seismic response of a wide range of in-plan asymmetric structures with the aim of providing general trends of behavior.