Ensuring the reliability and safety of load-bearing structures, buildings and structures is the most important task. The reliability or safety of a structural system is inextricably linked with the elements of this system that provide strength and spatial stability. The importance of each load-bearing element in the building system in ensuring overall mechanical safety is assessed differently. For multi-storey frame buildings, load-bearing elements, for example, columns of the lower floors, if they fail, can lead to a significantly greater volume of destruction compared to the structures of the upper floors. The article provides a methodology for determining criteria by which the level of responsibility of columns can be established depending on their location in the building plan, developed on the basis of numerical studies. As a result, a classification was compiled according to the level of responsibility of the columns of a monolithic multi-story frame building.

Keywords: limit state method, special limit state, emergency design situation, responsibility of load-bearing elements, reinforced concrete columns