Overview of Seismic Loads and Application of Local Code Provisions for Tall Buildings in Baku, Azerbaijan

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, has seen a boom in construction in recent years. The old Baku city has been rapidly transforming into a new hub of high-rise buildings and lively cultural centers hosting the Euro Vision Song Contest in 2012 and European Games in 2015. A major population shift to Baku from its suburbs and the countryside has resulted in the doubling of Baku's population in the 4 years between 2009 and 2013. As of January 2013, Baku's population reached four million people, 43% of the citizens in Azerbaijan according to The State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan. With this trend, the city needs more high-rise buildings to accommodate rapidly increasing demands for more housing and business space. Until the Azerbaijan Seismic Building Code was published in 2010 and became effective, many different seismic criteria, in terms of building codes and seismic intensities, were used for all new high-rise projects in Baku. Some designers used the SNIP (Russian) code with seismic level 9 or level 8 with 1 point penalty. Others used the Turkish code with Seismic Zone 1, UBC 97 with Zone 2 through 4, or IBC with Sa = 0.75 g through 1.0 g. The seismic intensity is now clarified with the Azerbaijan Seismic Building Code. However, the Azerbaijan Seismic Building Code is appropriate for low-rise buildings applications but may be inappropriate for high-rise project applications. This is because the code-defined response spectrum yields unrealistically conservative seismic forces for high-rise buildings with long periods, as compared to those determined by other internationally accepted building codes. This paper provides observations and recommendations for code-based seismic load assessment of high-rise buildings in the Baku area.