【正文】
ations of momentresisting and concentricallybraced frames. Although this study focuses mainly on European guidance, the discussions also refer to US provisions (AISC 1999, 2020, 2020a,b) for parison purposes. Where appropriate, simple analytical treatments are presented in order to illustrate salient behavioural aspects and trends, and reference is also made to recent experimental observations and ?ndings. Amongst the various aspects examined in this paper, particular emphasis is given to capacity design veri?cations as well as the implications of driftrelated requirements in moment frames, and to the postbuck ling behaviour and ductility demand in braced frames, as these represent issues that warrant cautious interpretation and consideration in the design process. Accordingly, a number of necessary clari?cations and possible modi?cations to code procedures are put forward. 2 General considerations Limit states and loading criteria The European seismic code, EC8 (Eurocode 8 2020) has evolved over a number of years changing status recently from a prestandard to a full European standard. The code explicitly adopts capacity design approaches, with its associated procedures in terms of failure mode control, force reduction and ductility requirements. One of the main merits of the code is that, in parison with other seismic provisions, it succeeds to a large extent in maintaining a direct and unambiguous relationship between the speci?c design procedures and the overall capacity design concept. There are two fundamental design levels considered in EC8, namely ‘nocollapse’ and ‘damagelimitation’, which essentially refer to ultimate and serviceability limit states, respec tively, under seismic loading. The nocollapse requirement corresponds to seismic action based on