Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436

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Comparison of Egyptian Code 2012 with Eurocode 8-2013, IBC 2015 and
UBC 1997 for seismic analysis of residential shear-walls RC buildings in
Egypt
Ahmed M. El-Kholy a,⇑, Hoda Sayed b, Ayman A. Shaheen a
a
Civil Eng. Dept., Faculty of Engineering, Fayoum University, El-Fayoum, Egypt
b
Faculty of Engineering, Nahda University NUB, Beni Suef, Egypt

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents comparative study for seismic provisions of four building codes (Egyptian Code for
Received 6 February 2018 Loads ECL 2012, Eurocode 8-2013, IBC 2015 and UBC 1997) to the prevailing multistory residential rein-
Revised 10 July 2018 forced concrete buildings comprising shear-walls (SW) and located in Cairo-Fayoum zone. Ten-story and
Accepted 15 July 2018
twenty-story buildings were analyzed using the equivalent static load method (ESL) and modal response
Available online 28 November 2018
spectrum method (MRS). Simplified time approach (STA) and realistic time approach (RTA) were adopted
for estimating the fundamental time period (T). The building base shear, SW moment, SW steel reinforce-
Keywords:
ment, and story-drift resulted from 32 three-dimensional finite element numerical simulations (two
Seismic analysis
Multistory shear-walls RC buildings
buildings
four codes
two analysis methods
two T approaches) were compared to draw conclusions
Equivalent static load for safe design without exaggerated conservativeness. The results motivate engineering firms to stop
Modal response spectrum using highly conservative UBC 1997, encourage engineers to adhere to MRS and RTA, increase the confi-
UBC, IBC, Eurocode 8 and Egyptian code of dence level in ECL, and prompt ECL committee to provide T-formula for SW buildings.
loads Ó 2018 Ain Shams University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under
Fundamental time period the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction increased if these buildings are designed using conservative seis-

Egypt is highly populated country (about 95 millions – 2%
annual increase rate) and majority of population lives in narrow
strip along Nile valley. The dense population in Nile strip was the
motivation behind the widespread construction of high rise build-
ings in the last two decades. Ten-story to twelve-story residential
buildings are now prevalent in Nile strip even in villages. Also,
twenty-story buildings are currently apparent in many districts
of Cairo. Moderate earthquakes occur near crowded Nile strip
may cause heavily damage if these multistory buildings are not
designed properly. However, the building cost is significantly
⇑ Corresponding author at: Lecturer of Structural Engineering at Fayoum
University, Kiman Fars, El-Fayoum 63514, Egypt. Mobile: +2 01008021711.
URL: http://www.fayoum.edu.eg/Engineering/Civil/DrAhmad.aspx (A.M. El-Kholy).
E-mail addresses: amk00@fayoum.edu.eg, ahmed.elkholy@fayoum.edu.eg
(A.M. El-Kholy), huda.sayed@nub.edu.eg (H. Sayed), aas08@fayoum.edu.eg
(A.A. Shaheen).
Peer review under responsibility of Ain Shams University.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
mic procedure. All these buildings are constructed form reinforced
concrete (RC) and have popular structural system comprising sim-
ple frames to transfer the vertical loads besides shear-walls (SW)
to resist earthquakes. The most damaging earthquakes in Egypt
history were Fayoum earthquake (17 August 1847) of VII modified
Mercalli intensity and Dahshour earthquake (12 October 1992) of
magnitude M = 5.7. Fayoum and Dahshour are located about 100
Km and 25 Km south west of downtown the capital Cairo in the
heavily populated Nile strip, and therefore severe damages were
observed. The 1847 earthquake destroyed 3000 buildings and 42
masjids whereas the 1992 earthquake damaged/destroyed 8300
buildings and 6135 schools [1,2].
The first Egyptian official regulation for seismic design was
prepared and released by Egyptian Society for Earthquake Engi-
neering (ESEE) in 1988 after few years of establishing ESEE. The
damage observed in 1992 earthquake motivated the update of
this regulation to release the Egyptian Code for Calculating Loads
& Forces in Structural and Building Works (ECL) in 1993. Signifi-
cant modifications and subsequent editions had prepared by the
Egyptian Code Committee in 2003, 2008 and finally 2012 [3].
The majority of engineering offices uses ECL and adheres to sim-
ple approach for fundamental time period (STA) and equivalent
static load analysis method (ESL) to evaluate the building base

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2018.07.004
2090-4479/Ó 2018 Ain Shams University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
3426 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436
shear and distribute it on stories. STA is defined by T = 0.05H0.75 in
which T is fundamental time period of building, and H is the
height of building. Then they use simple formulas or perform
three-dimensional (3-D) finite element analysis (FEA) to distribute
the story shears on SW. Highly ranked engineering offices prefer
and got used to adopt uniform building code (UBC) for seismic
analysis of high rise buildings especially those higher than twelve
stories and those designed for gulf countries. Alternative designs
may be prepared using international building code (IBC) and
Eurocode 8 (EC8) according to office regulations and client
requirements. Similar to majority of offices, these ranked offices
employ STA and perform 3-D FEA. Although they apply both ESL
and modal response spectrum analysis method (MRS) in the
analysis phase, they got used to adhere to ESL results in the design
phase seeking more conservativeness. On the other hand, few
offices may follow illegal procedure and neglect (or reduce) the
earthquake loads in their design of high rise buildings. Their logic
is that there is something weird (might be overestimation) in the
adopted seismic procedure that produces exaggerated RC sections
and reinforcement steel ratios with extreme cost of Egyptians
pounds.
The last version of uniform building code (UBC) was released in
1997 by international conference of building officials (ICBO) [4].
UBC 1997 was adopted in USA and in many countries all over the
world. UBC 1997 was one of three legacy codes whose develop-
ments were ceased in favor of the successor: international building
code (IBC) which was released in 2000 by the international code
council (ICC) [5]. Updated IBC edition is published every three
years. The most recent edition is IBC 2015 [6]. IBC 2015 refers to
the latest updated standard of minimum design loads for buildings
and other structures (ASCE 7-10) released in 2013 by American
Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) [7]. Nowadays, IBC 2015 is the
prevailing code in USA. However, UBC 1997 is still in use in some
engineering offices in developing countries like Egypt for the fol-
lowing reasons: (1) These offices got used to apply UBC for many
years (2) UBC provides seismic intensity coefficients for Egypt
and all countries unlike IBC which provides seismic maps for USA
only (3) IBC relates the seismic intensity to Ss and S1 (the mapped
spectral accelerations for short and one second periods, respec-
tively) which have not been implemented in ECL up to now. Many
comparative studies had been established between UBC and suc-
cessive editions of IBC to evaluate the safety of the buildings that
were constructed using UBC, and to clarify the similarities and dif-
ferences between the codes for structural engineers. Nahhas [8]
presented comparison between UBC 1997 and IBC 2009 for analyz-
ing four residential-office buildings with moment-resisting-frames
(MRF), and considered four sample locations in USA varying in seis-
micity and five different soil conditions in his study. Pong et al. [9]
presented comparative study between UBC and IBC 2003 for ana-
lyzing office and hospital buildings with MRF in two sample
locations.
Eurocode 8 (EC8) is another alternative that sometimes is used
by engineering offices (in Egypt) for design of important multistory
buildings. Eurocodes consist of 10 European Standards (EN) that
were developed by European Committee for Standardization
(CEN) to harmonize structural design rules within countries of
European Union. Eurocodes refer to the national annex of every
country to prescribe particular data and coefficients. Eurocode 8
(EN 1998) is the eighth standard and is concerned with the design
of structures for earthquake resistance. It comprises 6 parts (EN
1998-i, i = 1 to 6). EC8 was approved and published in 2004 [10].
The most recent amendments for EN 1998–2004 (EC8) was pub-
lished in 2013 [11]. The facts that EC8 has no wide use in private
sector in European countries and that many provisions of ECL are
completely similar to EC8, were argued that EC8 has limited use
in Egypt compared with UBC and IBC.
This variety of used seismic codes (not only in Egypt but also in
many countries) and the confusion about choosing the most realis-
tic code in addition to the large cost of constructing high rise build-
ing were sufficient to excite the motivation for researchers to
establish qualitative and quantitative comparisons between their
national codes and the popular international codes. Also, these
studies aim to assess the safety of existing buildings under the
recent provisions of different codes, and to assess the conservative-
ness of each code with respect to others. The following lines high-
light the distinguished comparative studies between ECL and
international codes for RC multistory buildings in Egypt. Abdo
[12] presented comparative study for estimating the fundamental
time period of SW multistory buildings using the empirical formu-
las of ECL 2008, UBC 1997, EC 8-1998 and ASCE 7-2006. Nasr [13]
compared the seismic analysis (two-dimensional) of earlier ECL
editions (1988, 1993 and 2003) with EC8-2004 and IBC 2003 for
four MRF buildings (5–20 stories) using ESL, MRS and time history
analysis method (THA). El-Fetyany [14] presented comparative
study for calculating seismic forces using ECL 1993, UBC 1994
and ASCE 7-1995. Yousef et al. [15] investigated the nonlinear
dynamic response of vertical irregular MRF buildings (12 stories)
constructed from high strength concrete using ECL 2003, IBC
2000 and EC8-2004. Tharwat et al. [16] compared the design
response spectrum curves of both ECL 2008 and UBC 1997 besides
applying ECL 2008 to compare ESL, MRS and THA drifts of horizon-
tal and vertical irregular buildings. El-Kassas and Haroun [17] uti-
lized ECL 2008 to compare the drifts of both ESL and THA for MRF
buildings in three different seismic zones. Abdel Raheem [18] com-
pared the results of both ESL and MRS with those of nonlinear THA
for MRF multi-story buildings analyzed according to ECL 2008.
Moreover, he discussed the procedures of estimating the funda-
mental time period (of MRF buildings) in ECL 1993, ECL 2008,
UBC 1997, IBC 2003, EC 8-2004 and the national building code of
Canada 2005, and compared their results with numerical periods
resulted from modal analysis.
Not only Egyptians but also researchers from many countries
compared their national codes with internationals. Fenwick et al.
[19] compared the New Zealand Loadings Standard 1992 and
New Zealand/Australian Loadings Standard 2002 with UBC 1997,
EC8-1998 and IBC 2000 through analyzing MRF multistory RC
office buildings (height 6–24 stories) located in high and low seis-
mic zones in New Zealand. Faizian and Ishiyama [20] compared the
Japan building code BSLJ 1981 and Iran (2800) building code with
IBC 2000 to illustrate their similarities and differences. Dogangun
and Livaogla [21] compared the design spectrum of Turkish earth-
quake code 1998 with UBC 1997, IBC 2003 and EC8-2004 and
applied them in 3-D FEA for RC buildings (height 6 and 12 stories)
with dual system of MRF and SW. Pong et al. [22] compared ESL
and the design spectra in both Mexico’s seismic manual 1993
and IBC 2003 for seismic analysis of MRF RC buildings (height 6
stories) in different seismic zones and soil conditions. Imashi and
Massumi [23] compared ESL in both Iranian seismic code 2005
and IBC 2003.
This paper compares four seismic codes (ECL 2012, EC8-2013,
IBC 2015, UBC 1997), two seismic analysis methods (ESL and
MRS) and two T approaches (STA and RTA) through investigating
two residential buildings (height 10 and 20 stories) located in
Cairo-Fayoum zone and constructed on soil matching the prevalent
soil in Nile strip. The similarities and differences in the seismic pro-
visions (concerning the considered buildings) of the four seismic
codes are presented. The results (building base shear, SW bending
moment, SW reinforcement ratio and story-drift) of the studied 32
cases are compared in order to provide safety assessment for
existing buildings, guidelines for engineers in Egypt (and other
countries) about the reliable seismic analysis procedure for
widespread SW RC high rise buildings, conservativeness
 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436
assessment for different studied codes (with respect to each other),
and evaluation for ECL provisions with respect to international codes.
2. Valid comparison of codes
Fenwick et al. [19] interpreted that comparison between seis-
mic codes can be valid when it is based on seismic analysis results
of specified buildings not on the comparisons of similar clauses in
different seismic codes (due to interrelationship with other
clauses). Authors agree with Fenwick observation and highlight a
common example of misleading comparison between codes
clauses; the comparison of elastic response spectra curves of differ-
ent codes is misleading for the following reasons: (1) the same
building has different T values and different response modification
factor (R) values in different codes, and (2) the minimum limits of
design response spectra (in different codes) are not equal.
3. Methodology
Two residential buildings (A and B) located in Cairo-Fayoum
zone with similar subsoil conditions were considered in this study.
The structural system for lateral-force resistance is RC shear-walls.
The buildings heights are ten and twenty stories for buildings A
and B, respectively. Each building was simulated 16 times under
seismic loads using four building codes (ECL 2012, EC8-2013, IBC
2015, UBC 1997), two seismic analysis methods (ESL and MRS),
and two T approaches (simple approach ‘‘STA” and realistic
approach ‘‘RTA”) as presented in Fig. 1. The considered buildings
specifications (standard occupancy-category, ten-story height, stiff
subsoil and SW system) are prevalent in Nile strip in considered
Cairo-Fayoum zone. Thereafter, the edition year of each considered
building code will be dropped and their names (in this paper) will
be ECL, EC8, IBC and UBC. Similarly, it will be referred to ASCE7-10
(2013) [7] as ASCE7. It is worth mentioning that it is not permitted
to use ESL for analysis of building B according to EC8. However, ESL
simulations were performed for purpose of comparison and
because engineers got used to consider ESL results in design phase
(even if it was not permitted to apply ESL analysis) seeking more
conservativeness. Design of RC sections was accomplished accord-
ing to 318-14 code of American Concrete Institute [24] and was
based on the straining actions resulted from the extreme simula-
tion UBC–STA–ESL for each building.
Every code provides approximate formulas for estimating T and
prescribes upper limit on T M obtained by proper 3-D modal analy-
sis (considering loss of flexural stiffness of structural elements).
Fig. 1. Methodology and numerical simulations tree of conducted 32 seismic analyses.
3427
This research categorizes the approaches of estimating T for SW
buildings as follows: (I) Simple approach (STA) that utilizes popular
simple formula ( S T ¼ C t H0:75 ) in which C t has approximately con-
stant value of 0.05 (in all codes) for SW buildings, and II) Realistic
approach (RTA) that defines the building fundamental time period
R
T as the smaller of both numerical T M value and empirical value
Tw w 0:75
in which coefficient C w
u ¼ CuCt H t is evaluated using SW for-
mula and is multiplied by upper limit coefficient C U . Equations
(4.8), (12.8–10) and (30–9) present the SW formulas in EC8, ASCE7
and UBC, respectively. Also, the reader may refer to Abdo [12] for
list of the three aforementioned equations, their parameters and
comparison between them. ECL does not provide SW formula,
and therefore C t is used instead of C w R
t to evaluate T.
4. Location and seismic intensity
The seismic intensity (in this research) is the design ground
acceleration ag. According to ECL (item 8-4-1), Cairo-Fayoum is
characterized as third seismic zone whereas it is characterized as
2A zone in UBC (Table 16-I). EC8 refers to the national code to spec-
ify ag. For IBC, the seismic intensity is implemented through Ss and
S1 parameters whose values for Egypt cites are not available in
either IBC or ECL as introduced in Section 1. This research applied
Ss and S1 values of 0.4 and 0.095, respectively. These values were
used by Nahhas [8] for location#1 that was characterized as zone
2A (similar to Cairo) in UBC. Refer to Table 1 for seismic intensity
data.
5. Subsoil
Table 1 summarizes the subsoil type and parameters for the
studied buildings in each code.
5.1. Conditions
Stiff subsoil was considered for the two buildings (A and B). Stiff
soil has shear wave velocity of 180–360 m/s, standard penetration
resistance of 15–50, and undrained shear strength of 70–100 KPa.
The calibration of four studied codes shows that stiff soil is catego-
rized as soil C in both ECL (Table 8–1) and EC8 (Table 3.1), and soil
D in both IBC (Table 20.3–1 in ASCE7) and UBC (Table 16-J).
3428 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436

Table 1
Soil, seismic, structural analysis, time period and load combinations data for both buildings A and (B) in the four codes.

ECL 2012 EC8-2013 IBC 2015 UBC 1997

Soil type C C D D
Seismic zone & intensity Third Third Ss = 0.4 g, S1 = 0.095 g 2A
ag = 0.15 g ag = 0.15 g Design category C Z = 0.15 g
Seismic & soil factors S = 1.5 S = 1.5 Fa = 1.48, Fv = 2.4 Ca = 0.22, Cv = 0.32
Occupancy category III II II 4
Importance factor c=1 c=1 I=1 I=1
Response modification factor R=5 q = 5.4 R=5 R = 5.5
Live load contribution in W w 25% 15% – –
Seismic weight W (ton) 8344 (22951) 8229 (22691) 8055 (22300) 8055 (22300)
Cracked stiffness ratio Column 0.7 0.5 0.7 0.7
Shear wall 0.35 0.5 0.35 0.35
Beam 0.5 0.5 0.35 0.35
Slab 0.25 0.5 0.25 0.25
Horizontal design response Curve for buildings A and B
spectrum for elastic structural TC = 0.25 s, TD = 1.20 s
analysis TS = SD1/SDS = 0.385 (IBC)
TS = Cv/2.5Ca = 0.582 (UBC)

*
Maximum is constant in ECL
in only case that T has mass
participation ratio greater
than 90%.

General Maximum* 2.5agcS/R 2.5agcS/R SDS/(R/I) 2.5Ca/R

equation Curve 2.5agcS(TC/TR) 2.5agcS(TC/TR) SD1/(RT/I) Cv/RT
Minimum 0.2agc 0.2agc 0.044 SDSI 0.11Ca
Fundamental time period T (s) STA, S T Ct 0.05 0.05 0.049 0.049
S
T ¼ C t H3=4 0.657 (1.078) 0.657 (1.078) 0.641 (1.056) 0.641 (1.056)

RTA, R T Cw
t
– 0.082 (0.078) 0.084 (0.147) 0.059 (0.052)
T w ¼ Cw
t H
3=4 – 1.08 (1.689) 1.104 (3.169) 0.775 (1.121)
CU 1.2 1.2 1.6 1.4
TW
U ¼ CU T
w 0.788 (1.294) 1.261 (2.027) 1.766 (5.070) 1.085 (1.569)
T M (first mode) 1.064 (1.817) 1.027 (1.706) 1.089 (1.862) 1.089 (1.862)
n o
T ¼ Min T W M 0.788 (1.294) 1.027 (1.706) 1.089 (1.862) 1.085 (1.569)
U ;T
R

Design spectrum acceleration Sd (m/s2) STA 0.42 (0.29) 0.39 (0.29) 0.47 (0.28) 0.89 (0.54)
estimated at T RTA 0.35 (0.29) 0.29 (0.29) 0.27 (0.17) 0.52 (0.38)
Number of mode shapes 14 (25) 14 (25) 14 (25) 14 (25)
Mass participation ratio (minimum 90%) X-direction 97.6 (98.6) 97.9 (98.8) 97.9 (98.6) 97.9 (98.6)
Y-direction 98.2 (98.8) 97.7 (99.0) 97.7 (98.8) 97.7 (98.8)
Minmum MRS/ESL shear ratio VMRS/VESL 0.85 0.85 0.85 0.90
Average MRS/ESL shear ratio VRS/VESL of both STA 0.85 (0.94) 0.85 (0.89) 0.85 (0.85) 0.90 (0.90)
directions RTA 0.88 (0.94) 1.01 (0.89) 0.94 (0.99) 0.90 (0.90)
Ultimate load combinations 1.4D 1.4D 1.4D 1.4D
Refer to EL-Kholy [26] for extracted combinations considering X & Y 1.4D + 1.6L 1.4D + 1.6L 1.2D + 1.6L 1.2D + 1.6L
directions and ± accidental torsional effects. 1.12D+ aL+E 1.12D+ aL+E 1.2D+aL+E 1.1(1.2D +aL+E)
0.9D + E 0.9D + E 0.9D + E 1.1(0.9D + E)
Displacement d 0.7Rde Rde Cdde/I 0.7Rde
Story drift Actual dr m Dd m Dd Dd Dd
Allowable 0.005 h 0.005 h 0.02 h 0.02 h

Values in parentheses represent building B data in case of inequality of those of building A.

g is the gravity acceleration.
Cwt is C t coefficient evaluated by shear wall formula provided in considered code.
w
S
T is used instead of T w to calculate T W
U in only ECL as no C t formula is provided in that code.
VESL and VMRS are the base shear forces resulted from equivalent static load method and response spectrum method, respectively.
Underlined ratio values indicate that corresponding VMRS was scaled to the minimum written ratio.
a = 0.25 in ECL & EC8 (residential buildings), whereas a = 0.50 in UBC & IBC (areas of live load  500 Kg/m2).
h is the height of the considered story.

5.2. Parameters beach (Table 8-3 in ECL, and Tables 3.2 & 3.3 in EC8). S is equal to
1.5 for the studied buildings. However, UBC and IBC soil factors
ECL and EC8 have identical soil factor that depends on soil type depend on soil type and seismic intensity. For UBC, the soil factor
and building location if it is near or away from Mediterranean sea is implicitly implemented in the seismic coefficients Ca and Cv
 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436 3429

(Tables 16-Q & 16-R) which are equal to 0.22 and 0.32, respec-
tively, for the studied two buildings. For IBC, the soil factor is
implicitly implemented in site coefficients Fa and Fv (Tables
1613.5.3(1) and (2)) which are equal to 1.48 and 2.4, respectively,
for the considered buildings.
6. Buildings
Fig. 2 presents the plan and structural system of the studied
buildings. Fig. 3 shows the 3-D finite element models of both build-
ings A and B. Table 1 summarizes the building coefficients in each
code.
6.1. Occupancy
Buildings A and B have residential usage purpose. They are clas-
sified as standard occupancy category in the four codes. The stan-
dard occupancy group has different ID in each code but identical
importance factor equal to 1.0 (refer to Table 1).
6.2. Description, concrete, reinforcement steel and loads
Buildings A and B have identical plan area of 22.9
24.5 m for
typical floors. Buildings A and B comprise ten and twenty stories,
respectively. The typical floor is 3 m height except for ground floor
(of only building A) which is 4 m height. Building B has three base-
ments with area of 31.85
35.10 m. Slabs and beams have con-
crete characteristic strength of 25 MPa whereas columns and
shear-walls have concrete characteristic strength of 30 MPa for
building A and 35 MPa for building B. The yield stress for steel rein-
forcement bars and SW ties is 360 MPa whereas it is 280 MPa for
ties in columns and stirrups in beams. Flooring, walls and live loads
were set to 2.0, 4.0 and 2.0 kN/m2.
6.3. Structural system and response modification factor R
The two buildings transfer vertical loads through RC simple
frame system consisting of flat slab (20 cm for building A and
25 cm for building B) with edge beam (30
80 cm), and vertical
elements of columns and SW. They resist horizontal loads through
the SW system consisting of two cores and four SW for each build-
ing. Fig. 2 illustrates the buildings plans and structural systems in
which earthquake resisting elements were hatched in dark solid
whereas columns were hatched in transparency solid. The percent-
ages of SW area (with respect to corresponding building area above
ground level) are 2.48% and 4.11%, respectively, for buildings
A and B.
UBC, IBC (ASCE7) and ECL specify R according to the classifica-
tion of structural system of the building as given in code Tables
16-N, 12.2-1 and 8-A, respectively. UBC, IBC and ECL classify build-
ing structural systems, respectively, into 7, 8 and 5 categories, and
classify building earthquake resisting structural systems into 42,
85 and 12 sub-categories, respectively. On the other hand, EC8
code follows complicated procedure for evaluating R (defined as
behavior factor q in EC8). That procedure depends on the structural
system, ductility class (function in concrete, steel reinforcement,
beams and columns properties) and prevailing failure mode (func-
tion in SW aspect ratio). Whereas UBC, IBC and ECL classify both
buildings A and B as RC building frame system with RC-SW as
resisting system for earthquake, EC8 classifies them as high-
ductility wall-equivalent system. Table 1 shows that R was set
equal to 5, 5.4, 5 and 5.5 for ECL, EC8, IBC and UBC, respectively.

X All beams are 30X80 cm All beams are 30X80 cm. Retaining walls (1st-3rd floor) thickness 40cm
Floor Wall thickness (cm) Column Cross section (cm) Floor Wall thickness (cm) Column Cross section (cm)
1-2 35 (30 for W1 & W2) C1 30X65 1-4 40 C1 40X100
3-5 30 C2 30X115 5-10 30 C2 40X130
6-10 25 C3 30X130 11-20 25 C3 45X150
a. Building A b. Building B (from 4th to 20th floor)

Fig. 2. Typical floor plan and structural systems of studied buildings.

3430 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436
a. Building A
b. Building B
Fig. 3. Three-dimensional finite element model.
6.4. Structural regularity and torsional behavior
The eccentricities between center of mass and center of rigidity
for buildings A and B were approximately zero and 0.19 in
X-direction and Y-direction, respectively. These values are smaller
than 15% corresponding building dimension and 30% torsion radius,
and therefore buildings A and B are regular in horizontal direction
according to ECL (item 8-6-3-2) and EC8 (item 4.2.3.2). Also, the
horizontal regularity criteria of UBC (Table 16-M) and IBC (table
12.3-1; ASCE7) are satisfied for both buildings. Although, the torsion
radius of typical floor (for each building) is slightly smaller than
the radius of gyration of the floor mass (slightly overrides EC8
torsional-stiff requirements), the deformed shapes of the first two
mode shapes obtained by 3-D modal analysis (considering cracked
flexural stiffness; Section 7.1) were translational for all studied
cases. Therefore, buildings A and B can be considered torsional stiff.
Building A satisfies the vertical regularity criteria of the four
codes according to item 8-6-3-3, item 4.2.3.3, table (16-L) and
table (12.3-2) in ECL, EC8, UBC and ASCE7, respectively. Building
B satisfies the vertical regularity criteria of ECL and EC8 which pro-
vide identical criteria for setback buildings unlike UBC and IBC
which had not identified explicit boundaries for setback buildings
and limited lateral stiffness difference between two adjacent sto-
ries to 70%.
6.5. Seismic weight W
The four codes identify seismic weight W equal to total dead
load in additional to certain ratio w of live load according to occu-
pancy type. EC8 relates w to the relation among occupied stories
besides occupancy type. For residential building with independent
occupied stories, EC8 (item 4.2.4) prescribes w = 0.15, whereas ECL
(item 8.7.1.4) prescribes w = 0.25 for residential building. UBC and
IBC add no live loads to seismic weight in residential buildings.
Table 1 lists w and W values of each building for every studied code.
7. Modeling and analysis
3-D finite element models were built for buildings A and B
(Fig. 3) using Etabs software [25]. This software is used in majority
of engineering offices, and it was recommended by Abdo [12] for
analysis of SW multistory RC buildings. The slabs, shear-walls
and retaining walls were modeled using shell elements whereas
beams and columns were modeled using frame elements. The shell
elements were meshed manually with maximum size of 1.0 m.
Supports were set fixed at foundation level. Rigid diaphragms were
assigned to each floor. P-Delta analysis was included. Mass source
was defined equal to seismic weight W (Section 6.5).
7.1. Rigidity of structural members
The four codes require that the cracked sections of RC elements
are considered in the analysis. Table 1 lists the cracked stiffness
ratios (with respect to intact section) proposed by the four codes.
7.2. Accidental torsion
±5% accidental eccentricity (with respect to corresponding floor
dimension) was assigned to the center of mass in each direction (X
or Y) for all models.
7.3. Vibration modes
3-D Etabs modal analysis was performed (four simulations for
each building according to each code) using Ritz method. The anal-
ysis considered cracked flexural stiffness (Section 7.1), assigned
seismic weight (Section 6.5), and stories diaphragms (Section 7).
The number of modes was set to 14 and 20 for buildings A and
B, respectively. The first and second modes were translational in
Y and X directions, respectively, for building A and in X and Y direc-
tions, respectively, for building B. The period of first mode was
recorded in Table 1 as T M .
 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436
7.4. Fundamental time period T
The simple and realistic approaches (STA and RTA) that were
introduced in the methodology (Section 3) were applied to calcu-
late S T and R T, respectively, for each building. Table 1 presents
detailed calculations of S T and R T for each building. The reader
can find the formulas and coefficients values used in T calculations
in annex (8-B), item 4.3.3.2.2, item 12.8.2 and item 1630.2.2,
respectively, in ECL, EC8, ASCE7 and UBC.
7.5. Horizontal elastic and design response spectra
The soil and seismic coefficients values given in Table 1 were
used to generate horizontal response spectra and their conjugate
design response spectra (for the four codes) in Fig. 4-a and b,
respectively. Also, Table 1 comprises schematic drawings for hori-
zontal design response spectra of four codes. The drawings repre-
sent the maximum limit, intermediate formula, minimum limit
and boundary T values. Fig. 4-b may be divided into three intervals:
(1) the first one varies from 0.4 s to 0.9 s and codes order (accord-
ing to conservativeness level) is UBC-IBC-ECL-EC8, (2) the second
one varies from 0.9 s to 2 s, and shows the start of minimum inter-
val of both ECL and EC8 to raise their conservativeness above IBC
and update the order to UBC-ECL-EC8-IBC, and finally (3) the third
zone starts from 2 s, and shows clear comparison between mini-
mum limits of the four codes where ECL and EC8 conservativeness
exceeded other codes and the order is updated to ECL-EC8- UBC-
IBC. Authors remind that this comparison of response design spec-
tra can be misleading (see Section 2) if other parameters such as T,
W, cracked stiffness ratios, and load combinations were not
considered.
7.6. Equivalent static load analysis method (ESL)
The method is simple and applied to buildings whose response
is not significantly affected by contributions from vibration modes
that are higher than fundamental mode in each direction. The four
codes ECL, EC8, IBC and UBC set certain constraints (item
8.7.3.2.1.2, item 4.3.3.2.1, table 12.6-1 (ASCE7) and item
Fig. 4. Horizontal response spectra curves for considered site and building specifications in studied four codes.
3431
1629.8.3.1, respectively) to apply ESL. According to EC8 restric-
tions, ESL analysis is not permitted for building B because its
S
T or R T is greater than 4TC unlike building A. The other three
codes allow ESL analysis for both buildings A and B. The authors
would like to draw attention to the inconsistency of equation
(4.4) in EC8 with item 8.7.3.2.1-2b in ECL, and they believe that
it might be due an editing error. However, ESL analysis (in this
paper) was conducted for all studied cases for the comparison pur-
pose because designers used to apply ESL even the considered
building does not satisfy its restrictions.
7.7. Modal response spectrum analysis method (MRS)
The method is general and applied for regular and irregular
structures. ECL (item 8.7.3.3.1.5), EC8 (item 4.3.3.3.1), ASCE7 (item
12.9.1) and UBC (item 1631.5.2) enforce minimum mass participa-
tion ratio of 90% (with respect to total mass of building) to ensure
that all significant vibration modes were included in the analysis
and that predicted response is correct and valid. The number of
vibration modes and the ratios for participating mass (accumu-
lated in X and Y directions) are given in Table 1. Also, the four
codes prescribe minimum MRS base shear as a specified ratio of
that calculated by ESL. The ratios are given in Table 1.
7.8. Load combinations
Table 1 lists the employed basic load combinations according to
items 3.2.1.1, 3.2.4, 16052, and 1612.2.1, respectively, in ECL, EC8,
IBC and UBC for the two residential buildings. Whereas IBC and
UBC utilize half (a = 0.5) of live load L in basic seismic load
combination, ECL employs only one quarter (a = 0.25) of L. The
basic seismic combinations (last two equations) are extracted to
twenty combinations (ten in each direction) for ESL and MRS as
presented by El-Kholy [26].
8. Results
Figs. 5–12 show comparisons between base shears, bending
moments on SW, reinforcement ratios of SW and stories drifts
3432 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436

1400 Base shear × 102 kN

1212
Building A - STA
1200
Building A - RTA
Building B - STA
1000
Building B - RTA

821
722
800
690
690

672
672

633
600

425
382
377
357

322
298

400
244

222

200

0
S R S R S R S R S R S R S R S R
A B A B A B A B
ECL 2012 EC 8-2013 IBC 2015 UBC 1997
Fig. 7. Bending moment M (based on ESL analysis) about X-direction for Y-direction
Fig. 5. Base shear force Fb based on ESL analysis.
excitation.

Fig. 6. Base shear ratio (MRS/ESL) based on average values of X and Y directions.

Fig. 8. Moment ratio (MRS/ESL) for SW based on average values of STA and RTA.

evaluated by the four studied codes for both buildings A and B.
Fig. 5 shows the base shear values evaluated according to ESL
and using the two T approaches (STA and RTA). Fig. 6 illustrates
the ratio of base shear evaluated using MRS to that evaluated
using ESL for STA and RTA approaches. Fig. 7 shows ESL bending
moments (about X-direction for CR1 and CR2 in buildings A and B,
respectively) for STA and RTA approaches. Fig. 8 averages the
results of STA and RTA approaches to present the ratio of the
moment evaluated using MRS to that evaluated using ESL. It is
worth mentioning that the core CR1 (in building A) and the core
CR2 (in building B) (refer to Fig. 2) were considered in this
research to represent the moment and reinforcement results of
SW in each building. The presented maximum moments were
resulted from the last basic load combination in Table 1 for earth-
quake excitation in Y-direction and accidental code eccentricity.
Figs. 9 and 10 provide the design reinforcement steel ratio based
on the straining actions of ESL and MRS, respectively, for both
studied time approaches. The design reinforcement ratio refers
to the maximum ratio resulted from extracted load combinations
(Section 7.8) for certain analysis method and time approach.
Fig. 11 represents the maximum ESL story-drift relative to the
allowable drift (of each code) for both studied time approaches.
Fig. 12 averages the results of STA and RTA approaches to present
the ratio of maximum relative story-drift evaluated using MRS to
that evaluated using ESL.
8.1. Base shear force Fb
Fig. 5 declares that UBC is highly conservative (with respect to
the other codes) for all studied cases. This UBC conservativeness
 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436 3433

1.8 Reinforcement ratio %AS 1.2 Relative story drift

1.65
Building A - STA
1.6 Building A - RTA
1.0 Building B - STA
1.4 Building A - STA
Building B - RTA

0.78
0.78
Building A - RTA

0.73
1.1
1.2 0.8
Building B - STA
1.0 Building B - RTA

0.6
0.6

0.52
0.75
0.6

0.5

0.5
0.65
0.8

0.41
0.38
0.54

0.54

0.4
0.34

0.33
0.6 0.4

0.3

0.27
0.37

0.19
0.25
0.25
0.25

0.25
0.25
0.25

0.25
0.25
0.4 0.25

0.2
0.2

0.0 0.0
S R S R S R S R S R S R S R S R
A B A B A B A B S R S R S R S R S R S R S R S R
A B A B A B A B
ECL 2012 EC 8-2013 IBC 2015 UBC 1997 ECL 2012 EC 8-2013 IBC 2015 UBC 1997
Fig. 9. Reinforcement ratio based on ESL analysis.
Fig. 11. Relative story-drift based on ESL analysis.

1.0 Ratio
1.6 Reinforcement ratio %AS

0.9
0.83

0.78
1.29

0.8
1.4

0.72
0.8
0.7

0.67
1.1

1.2

0.59
1.0
0.6
0.75

0.8
0.54

0.6 0.4

0.4
0.25
0.25
0.25
0.25

0.25
0.25
0.25
0.25

0.25
0.25
0.25
0.25

Building A
0.2 Building B
0.2

0.0
S R S R S R S R S R S R S R S R 0.0
A B A B A B A B
ECL 2012 EC 8-2013 IBC 2015 UBC 1997 A B A B A B A B
2012 EC 8-2013
ECL 2016 IBC 2015 UBC 1997
Fig. 10. Reinforcement ratio based on MRS analysis.
Fig. 12. Relative story-drift ratio (MRS/ESL) based on average values of STA and
RTA.

is higher for STA (194%) than that for RTA (154%). This conserva-
tiveness is calculated as the ratio between UBC average base shear
F
b (average Fb of ESL and MRS) and the average of F
b values of the
other three codes for both buildings. This fact says that continuing
using UBC (especially when engaged with STA) in some firms in
Egypt (and other developing countries) for calculating earthquake
loads of ten and twenty-stories SW buildings is not wise from eco-
nomical view. Whereas Table 1 shows that the seismic weights W
are almost equal in the four codes for each building, it declares that
the difference in design response spectrum acceleration Sd is the
source of UBC conservativeness as Fig. 4-b confirms for buildings
with T smaller than 2 s.
On the contrary, ECL, EC and IBC produces close realistic base
shears that are small compared with UBC. IBC produces the least
base shear especially for RTA. IBC F
b is approximately equal to half
and two-thirds that of UBC and ECL, respectively. The time periods
calculated using RTA in Table 1 confirm this result as they indicate
that building A and building B fit in the second interval of design
response spectrum curves (shown in Fig. 4-b) in which IBC
provides lower bound for the other codes. EC8 and ECL stands
between the conservative UBC side and the economic IBC side.
EC8 produces F
b equal to 92% of that of ECL. The difference between
EC8 and ECL results is small because of the similarity between the
two codes. This small difference backs to the inconsistent R
values and the absence of T-formula for SW buildings in ECL which
results in under-estimated T and over-estimated Sd and Fb (refer to
Table 1).
3434 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436
8.1.1. Effect of time period approach and analysis method

For all cases, RTA produces reduced F b compared with that of
STA. Whereas this reduction is high for both UBC and IBC (approx-
imately 35% for both buildings), it is moderate for both ECL and
EC8 (approximately 17% for building A) because of the existence
of conservative minimum limit on Sd in both ECL and EC8 (Fig. 4-
b), and the absence of realistic T-formula for SW building in ECL.
Definitely, this observation (reduction) does not apply for mini-
mum spectrum acceleration interval (in any code) where the base
shears of both STA and RTA coincide, similar to the cases of analyz-
ing building B by ECL and EC8.
A glance to Fig. 6 shows that STA-MRS base shear is always
magnified (highlighted with underlined in Fig. 6) to minimum code
requirement (except for cases with T in minimum Sd zone) because
STA-ESL base shear is high (based on under-estimated T value).
However, RTA-MRS base shear usually exceeds the minimum code
requirement because RTA-ESL base shear is small and based on
large realistic T. Therefore, RTA-MRS base shears were not scaled
(except UBC) and they were used with their intact values resulted
from analysis.
8.2. Bending moment M
Similar to base shear results, Figs. 7 and 8 confirm the consis-
tency of ECL, EC8 and IBC, and the conservativeness of UBC over
them. UBC moment conservativeness is 255% for STA and 201%
for RTA. This conservativeness is approximately 1.3 times that of
base shear. This conservativeness is calculated as the ratio between
UBC average moment M
(average M of ESL and MRS) and the aver-
age of M
values of the other three codes for both buildings. The
inequality between Fb and M conservativeness confirms that com-
paring base shear values of different codes (for one building) is not
enough to guess the difference in moment value of certain SW in a
specified building. In each code, the ratios of cracked flexural stiff-
ness, the distribution procedure of base shear on stories in ESL, and
the response spectrum curve with generated mode shapes in MRS
play important role in distributing the lateral force on vertical
structural elements and adjusting the moments created on these
elements. Two examples are highlighted to clarify the previous
observation. First, there is inconsistency between Fb reduction ratio
(MRS/ESL) and those corresponding for M reduction (Fig. 8 versus
Fig. 6). Second, EC8 generated smaller moments than IBC (espe-
cially for STA) unlike base shear results (Fig. 7 versus Fig. 5)
because that EC8 and IBC employ different cracked flexural stiff-
ness ratios (Table 1).
8.2.1. Effect of time period approach and analysis method
The reduction in RTA moments with respect to those of STA is
identical to base shear reduction because that cracked stiffness
ratios affect the structure analysis based on either STA or RTA.
UBC and IBC provide the highest moment reduction whereas ECL
and EC8 provide the least moment reduction for RTA with respect
to STA.
Fig. 8 declares that MRS provides reduced realistic moments
(compared with those of ESL) for all studied cases. The average
reduction is 20% for building A and 36% for building B. The higher
reduction for building B reveals the limitations of ESL in analysis of
twenty-story buildings and its inconsistency with realistic MRS
results. Also, ECL provides the highest average M reduction (34%
for both studied buildings) over the other codes for MRS results
(with reference to ESL moments). It could be argued that the
absence of T-formula for SW buildings in ECL magnifies the conser-
vativeness and unreliability of ESL in ECL. The values 20% and 36%
(MMRS/MESL) are inconsistent with those of base shear reduction
(average 9% for both buildings) as explained and interpreted in
the lines preceding Section 8.2.1.
8.3. Reinforcement ratio As%
Reinforcement results are the most important because they can
be converted into money unlike straining actions results. More-
over, reinforcement steel cost for one cubic meter of RC is approx-
imately three times the cost of the other constituents (cement,
aggregates and water) in Egypt. It is worth mentioning that the
cross-sectional dimensions of SW were maintained constant in
the 32 simulated cases in order to make one parameter (AS%)
judges the comparison from economical view. Also, all the RC sec-
tions in the 32 simulated cases were designed according to ACI
318-14 [24] because this paper does not aim to evaluate or com-
pare the RC design procedures in different codes. Although the
Egyptian code for design and construction of concrete structures
ECCS [27] was not considered in this paper, the author should high-
light that it prescribes higher reinforcement ratio (compared with
the applied code; ACI 318-14) to be concentrated at ends and inter-
sections of walls (0.2% in the critical zone). Figs. 9 and 10 declares
the huge conservativeness of UBC over the other codes. The UBC
conservativeness ratio of reinforcement is approximately double
that of total base shear, and 1.43 times that of bending moment.
The UBC average reinforcement ratio A
S % (average of ESL and
MRS results) is more than 300–500% of those of other codes for
STA, whereas it is more than 200–300% for RTA. In other words,
the reduction in reinforcement (money saving of reinforcement
steel item) is more than 67–80% and 50–67%, respectively, for
STA and RTA when UBC is replaced with one of the other three
codes. Consequently, the reduction in SW RC cost (per cubic meter)
will be 50–60% and 38–50%, respectively, for STA and RTA.
8.3.1. Effect of time period approach and analysis method
Using MRS instead of ESL results in reduction in base shear,
moments on SW, and consequently in reinforcement. For ECL,
EC8 and IBC, MRS saves 47% of ESL average reinforcement. The
47% reduction in steel cost means 35% reduction in SW RC cost
(in construction market of Egypt). This saving (47%) is approxi-
mately three and two times the corresponding saving in base shear
and moment, respectively. For UBC, the average saving in rein-
forcement steel (SW RC cost) was 20% (15%) and 50% (38%), respec-
tively, for building A and building B. This 20% saving in building A
reinforcement is approximately two times that of base shear and
moments. On the other hand, the 50% saving in building B rein-
forcement is approximately five times and two times those of base
shear and moments, respectively. This huge conservativeness of
ESL-reinforcement in building B confirms its unreliability for anal-
ysis of tall buildings. Also, it declares the influence of the analysis
method on the reinforcement ratio, and highlights the misleading
comparisons of shear and moment.
Replacing STA with RTA reduces the reinforcement ratio. For
building A analyzed according to ESL, the average saving in rein-
forcement (RC cost) for the four codes was 50% (38%). For MRS, it
is obvious that the comparison of reinforcement ratios of ECL,
EC8 and IBC is meaningless as they provide minimum reinforce-
ment ratio 0.25%. For UBC-MRS simulation cases, the reductions
were 38% (28%) and 67% (50%) for buildings A and B, respectively.
The average reduction in maximum reinforcement is about 2.4
times corresponding average reduction in either base shear or
moment for all studied codes.
It is worth mentioning that the comparison of maximum rein-
forcement ratios was made for the RC core that receives significant
portion of lateral force, whereas the shear comparison was
 A.M. El-Kholy et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3425–3436
concerned with base shear received by the whole building. There-
fore, the cracked flexural stiffness, analysis method and load com-
binations play significant role in adjusting shear force and bending
moment portions received by every vertical element and conse-
quently its reinforcement ratio.
8.4. Story-drift dr
Story-drift is the difference of average lateral displacements d
at top and bottom of the considered story. Table 1 presents the
allowable (limit) story-drift for the studied buildings (RC build-
ings with non-structural elements of brittle materials and
T  0.7 s as prescribed in items 8.8.3.2, 4.4.3.2, 12.12.1 and
1630.10.2 in ECL, EC8, ASCE7 and UBC, respectively). Table 1 illu-
minates how to calculate the displacement (d) by factorizing de
determined by linear analysis based on design response spectrum
according to items 8.7.4, 4.3.4, 12.8.6-1 and 1630.9.2 in ECL, EC8,
ASCE7 and UBC, respectively. IBC permits to calculate story-drift
based on modal fundamental time period T M exceeding the upper
limit T W
U according to item 12.8.6.2 in ASCE7. Also, it permits to
calculate the story-drift based on seismic design forces that do
not consider the minimum design response spectrum acceleration
(0.044 SDSI, Table 1) according to item 12.8.6.1 in ASCE7.
However, these permissions were not applied in the presented
examples in this paper.
The order of codes according to the maximum absolute story-
drift was UBC, IBC, EC8 and finally ECL for all studied cases. The fact
that ECL provided the least story-drift stands against the false
thought between some designers that the prescribed story-drift
limit (0.005 h) of ECL is too small to achieve. Table 1 demonstrates
that the four codes have different allowable drift limits and there-
fore comparing the absolute drift values without considering the
allowable drift is misleading. Accordingly, absolute story-drift
charts were not presented in the paper.
Figs. 11 and 12 show that the relative story-drift (absolute/
allowable) ratios are conservative and close for both UBC and
EC8 compared with ECL and IBC. It is not a surprise that IBC pro-
vides the least relative story-drift ratios as it prescribes reliable
seismic loads (least spectrum acceleration especially for RTA)
besides the highest allowable story-drift according to Table 1. IBC
story-drift may be minimized more by applying the permissions
mentioned in the end of the first paragraph of this section. ECL
ranked the second order in the ascending order of codes with
respect to relative story-drift. ECL seems to be the most reliable
code in estimating the drift as there is consistency between applied
spectrum acceleration and story-drift limit, and it ranks intermedi-
ate order between IBC (from side) and both EC8 and UBC (from the
other side).
8.4.1. Effect of time period approach and analysis method
RTA provides average reduction of 15%, 24% and 35% in rela-
tive story-drift ratios calculated by ECL, EC8 and UBC (or IBC),
respectively, with respect of those calculated based on STA.
ECL reveals the least (insignificant) reduction because of the lack
of SW T-formula. The 15% and 24% reductions of ECL and EC8,
respectively, vanish for building B because of the early start of
minimum design response spectrum interval in both codes
(Fig. 4-b).
Unlike T effect, ECL provided the highest reduction in relative
story-drift ratio when MRS was used instead of ESL. It could be
argued that absences of SW T-formula in ECL increased the gap
between dr values computed by ESL and MRS. The average code
reduction in relative story-drift was 20% for building A and 30%
for buildings B. The 10% gap between buildings A and B confirms
the non-reliability of using ESL to analyze building B.
3435
9. Conclusions
The seismic provisions and results of analyzing widespread ten
and twenty-story RC SW buildings constructed on prevailing soil in
Nile strip were reviewed and compared for four codes: ECL 2012,
Eurocode 8-2013, IBC 2015 and UBC 1997. Two analysis methods
(ESL and MRS) and two fundamental time period approaches
(STA and RTA) were involved in the study. The following conclu-
sions can be drawn based on the results of 32 seismic simulations
conducted for the two sample buildings whose structural system
and height represent the majority of residential multistory build-
ing constructed in Egypt in the last two decades.
(1) Valid comparative study of codes should be based on the
detailed results of seismic analyses not the corresponding
clauses of different codes. The only motivation behind the
several presented comparisons of different code clauses (in
this paper) is to demonstrate the similarities and dissimilar-
ities between these codes.
(2) UBC provides overestimated base shear, SW moment and
SW reinforcement steel with average conservativeness
ratios of 175%, 228% and 325%, respectively, compared with
the other studied codes which show close results.
(3) Generally, IBC may be nominated as the most reliable seis-
mic code in the studied building codes.
(4) RTA reduces the base shear (or SW moment), relative story-
drift, and SW reinforcement steel with 22%, 27% and 50%,
respectively, of those resulted from STA.
(5) MRS reduces the SW moment, relative story-drift, and SW
reinforcement steel with 28%, 25% and 50%, respectively, of
those resulted from ESL.
(6) The results guarantee that structural engineers (in Egypt)
have to raise their confidence level in ECL results (base
shear, SW moment and story-drift) and expand its use
instead of conservative UBC or other codes.
(7) The results prompt the ECL committee to develop funda-
mental time period formula and to revisit the prescribed
CU value for shear-wall RC multistory buildings. Also, prepa-
ration of Ss and S1 data (contour map) for Egyptian country is
essential in order to interact accurately and easily with IBC
(the most popular international building code nowadays).
Funding
No funding was received for the conduct of this study.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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Dr. Ahmed M. EL-Kholy is Lecturer of Structural Engi-
neering at the Department of Civil Engineering, Fayoum
University, Egypt. His research interests are Finite Ele-
ment Analysis (FEA), nonlinear analysis, failure analysis,
imperfection modeling, multistory buildings seismic
analysis, earthquake loads, seismic codes, confinement
of RC columns, and non-traditional materials usage for
construction of new structures and repair of existing
structures. He is a member of concrete laboratory since
2011. Dr. Ahmed is expert in the analysis and design of
high rise buildings in Egypt and gulf countries using
national and international building codes. amk00@fay-
oum.edu.eg, ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2094-
9574, http://www.fayoum.edu.eg/English/Engineering/
Civil/DrAhmad.aspx.
Eng. Hoda Sayed Said is Teaching Assistant of Structural
Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, Nahda
University NUB, Egypt. Eng. Hoda is M.Sc. student at the
Department of Civil Eng., Faculty of engineering, Fay-
oum University. Her research interests are steel struc-
tures, seismic analysis of multistory RC buildings,
earthquake loads and seismic codes. huda.sayed@nub.
edu.eg.
Professor Dr. Ayman A. Shaheen is Professor emeritus of
Reinforced Concrete Structures at the Department of
Civil Eng., Faculty of Engineering, Fayoum University,
Egypt. Professor Shaheen is a previous Dean of Engi-
neering, Chairman of Civil Engineering Department, and
head of Concrete Laboratory at Fayoum University. He is
consultant engineer for more twenty years. Dr. Ayman
is expert in the design, construction, and strengthening
of RC structures for more than forty years. His current
research interests are design of RC structures under
disaster loadings such as fires and earthquakes, and use
of innovative materials for construction and repair of RC
structures. aas00@fayoum.edu.eg.