Building Story Drift in ETABS & Wind Drift

Published on July 1, 2019

Drift is a very complex topic in structural engineering. It involves too many factors
to arrive at a suitable decision. It involves engineering judgment, the phenomenon
fresh engineers might not feel. In this article, I have tried to explain what is
building drift, allowable limits, ways and means to check in ETABS models and to
control the excessive drift. Please keep in mind, this article is not about the
building drift as far as structural science is concerned, rather this topic of drift is
related to ETABS software.I am quoting here the definitions from UBC-97 code:-

STORY DRIFT is the lateral displacement of one level relative to the level above
or below.
STORY DRIFT RATIO is the story drift divided by the story height.

1) Maximum Limits:Now what for story drift limits? What is the maximum
permissible value? Well it depends upon the type of drift. Is it seismic or wind?
For seismic, I will refer to UBC-97 code which in section 1630.10.2 talks about
drift limits for earthquake.
Now in simple words, the maximum limit for seismic drift is:- delta M shall not
exceed 0.025 x story ht (if building seismic period is less than 0.7)

delta M shall not exceed 0.020 x story ht (if building seismic period is equal or
greater than 0.7)

Important to note here is that it talks about SEISMIC drift so SEISMIC building
period not the WIND period.

Now delta M = Max inelastic response displacement = 0.7R delta S

where R = from Table 16-N

delta S = displacement from static, elastic analysis this value is read from ETABS.

you multiply this value by 0.7R to get delta M

This was all about seismic drift, but for wind drift code is mute. I will refer you to
ASCE 2005 commentary CC.1.2
So we can understand that the limit for wind drift is "on the order of l/600 to l/400"
for "common usage". This is common thing, however, in reality this figure can be
up or down depending upon the ductility of cladding material and finishes.
However for common usage value of l/400 is thought to be well satisfactory. Here l
means story ht.The concept of drift limits is same throughout all the governing
codes, and the typical limits of story height by some number is same, but obviously
you have to take care of the process of calculating the wind force or seismic forces.
You should not calculate wind force from one code and apply limits of another
code.

2) Load Combinations

Once the drift limit has been determined separately for seismic and wind forces,
now is the need to check the actual drift vs the limit. Determination of actual drift
depends on the load combination and the period of recurrence. If not properly
calculated, this may dramatically increase or decrease the accepted drift values in
model.

Seismic force E is always already factored so that's the reason its factor is always
1.0 in load combinations of ACI/ASCE code. The recurrence period for seismic
force is 50 years. In seismic drift we do not convert it into service seismic force.
Seismic drift is checked against the direct load case of EQx, EQy etc in
ETABS. There's confusion about using combination or load case only.I studied &
read different articles on it. It varies according to the seismic provision to the
structure. Some engineers do regular practice with direct seismic case, some does
with load combination. And variation between the Load Comb & Direct Load case
is not much.
For wind drift, we need to convert 50 year wind to service wind force. It has been
recommended by ASCE commentary CC.1.2

To convert 50 year service wind force to 10 year service wind force it is multiplied
by 0.7, as the equation says, and other gravity loads; D and 0.5L are also added.

So in a nutshell we create following load combinations in ETABS to check our

drift:-

DRIFTWx1 = D+0.5L+0.7Wx

DRIFTWx2 = D+0.5L-0.7Wx

DRIFTWy1 = D+0.5L+0.7Wy

DRIFTWy2 = D+0.5L-0.7Wy

For seismic drift, as discussed earlier, we do not need any combination; drift will
be checked just on EQx and EQy load cases only.
3) How to check in ETABS

Now we have obtained both the actual drift and the drift limit, but how can we do
this in ETABS easily? Well, after creating the drift combinations as discussed in
step 2, we need to do as below:-

Display>Story Rsponse Plot>Show>Max Story Drift>EQ>Select 'Step Number' '1'

for X dir, & '2' for Y dir.

We are going to check just the drift values of our ETABS model for individual
seismic load cases; EQx and EQy.

As you noticed, this picture shows us values in fraction format. For example max
value becomes 0.000987. It means delta S / story ht.

First we need to convert it to delta M by multiplying it with 0.7R. Assume R here

is 3.5 so
delta M = 0.7 x 3.5 x 0.000987= 0.002418 which is less than 0.025 so safe ( if
T<0.7).

This way we can quickly check and compare seismic drifts.

For the wind drifts, go to Display>Story Response Plot>Show>Max Story Drift>

Select Load Combination for results.

That should be less than H/400 to H/600 limit (0.0025 t0 0.00167). The values
reported in ETABS are divided by story ht. That means Drift Ratio.

From Tables also we can explore Drift & joint displacement values.
4) Controlling Excessive Drift Values

Sometimes we may face problem of excessively large values in drift tables in

ETABS. Well we are not going to talk about different measures and modelling
techniques to control the drift values. We are going to talk about large numbers in
drift tables. Sometimes it happens that a point or node is free in the model or is
connected to a NULL line or very flexible section. Drift tables for example the
story drift table in wind captures the maximum displaced points. Obviously the
displacement of several meters in tables is not what we are looking for. Drift
values (relative) may be still okay for these points, but it requires you to check the
displacement values too before checking directly the drift. Unlock the model and
remove all free points, check for any discontinuity and modify your models to
remove all the errors.
Thanks for reading the article. For getting different structural engineering software
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