Joel Mondo Kisekini, for the Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering, presented on March 25, 2022, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.TITLE: EFFECT OF SIMULTANEOUS APPLICATION OF THE TWO HORIZONTAL ORTHOGONAL GROUND MOTION COMPONENTS ON THE SEISMIC BEHAVIOR OF BUILDINGSMAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. JALE TEZCAN During an earthquake, buildings are simultaneously excited by two horizontal and one vertical ground motion components. Modern seismic codes and guidelines such as ASCE/SEI 41-06 (Seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings, American Society of Civil Engineers), EUROCODE 8 (1998-1) (Design provisions for earthquake resistance of structures, European Committee for Standardization, 2003), FEMA 356 (Prestandard and Commentary for Seismic Rehabilitation of the Buildings) and FEMA P-2082 (NEHRP Recommended Seismic Provisions for new buildings and other structures) require the consideration of the effects of two horizontal orthogonal ground motions in seismic design of buildings. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the simultaneous effect of two horizontal orthogonal ground motion components to seismic behavior of buildings. A four-story steel frame is modeled, and it is subjected to a set of twenty ground motion pairs recorded distances between x and y kilometer from epicenter. Three methods for combining peak response to individual component of ground motions is used to estimate the displacement responses. The combination rules used in this present study are 30%, SRSS, and 20%. The response of the four-story steel frame is investigated within the context of linear response history analysis and the results are compared to the peak responses obtained from time history analyses under bidirectional and unidirectional ground motion. The structural response includes the following parameters: nodal displacements and the critical angle of excitation. The output results showed that the maximum response under two components was, on average, 23 % more than the maximum response under a single component, and the two horizontal orthogonal seismic excitations increased the structure displacement response compared to unidirectional excitation.