• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.103-111
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• 2018

This study examines the seismic failure of RC low-rise building structures having irregularities at the ground story during the 15 November 2017 Pohang, Korea, earthquake, $M_w=5.4$, which is the second strongest since the government began monitoring them in 1978 in South Korea. Some 2,000 private houses were damaged or destroyed in this earthquake. Particularly, serious damage to the piloti story of RC low-rise residential building structures of fewer than five stories was observed within 3 km of the epicenter with brittle shear failure of columns and walls due to severe torsional behavior. Buildings below six stories constructed before 2005 did not have to comply with seismic design requirements, so confinement detailing of columns and walls also led to inadequate performance. However, some buildings constructed after 2005 were damaged at the flexible side of the piloti story due to the high torsional irregularity. Based on these results, this study focuses on the problems of the seismic torsion design approach in current building codes.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.483-503
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• 2016

This study aims to evaluate seismic performance of existing low and mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings by comparing their displacement capacities and displacement demands under selected ground motions experienced in Turkey as well as demand spectrum provided in 2007 Turkish Earthquake Code for design earthquake with 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years for soil class Z3. It should be noted that typical residential buildings are designed according to demand spectrum of 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years. Three RC building sets as 2-, 4- and 7-story, are selected to represent reference low-and mid-rise buildings located in the high seismicity region of Turkey. The selected buildings are typical beam-column RC frame buildings with no shear walls. The outcomes of detailed field and archive investigation including approximately 500 real residential RC buildings established building models to reflect existing building stock. Total of 72 3-D building models are constructed from the reference buildings to include the effects of some properties such as structural irregularities, concrete strength, seismic codes, structural deficiencies, transverse reinforcement detailing, and number of story on seismic performance of low and mid-rise RC buildings. Capacity curves of building sets are obtained by nonlinear static analyses conducted in two principal directions, resulting in 144 models. The inelastic dynamic characteristics are represented by "equivalent" Single-Degree-of- Freedom (ESDOF) systems using obtained capacity curves of buildings. Nonlinear time history analysis is used to estimate displacement demands of representative building models idealized with (ESDOF) systems subjected to the selected ground motion records from past earthquakes in Turkey. The results show that the significant number of pre-modern code 4- and 7-story buildings exceeds LS performance level while the modern code 4- and 7-story buildings have better performances. The findings obviously indicate the existence of destructive earthquakes especially for 4- and 7-story buildings. Significant improvements in the performance of the buildings per modern code are also obvious in the study. Almost one third of pre-modern code buildings is exceeding LS level during records in the past earthquakes. This observation also supports the building damages experienced in the past earthquake events in Turkey.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.1435-1452
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• 2015

The performance of masonry infilled frames during the past earthquakes shows that the infill panels play a major role as earthquake-resistant elements. Experimental observations regarding the influence of infill panels on increasing stiffness and strength of reinforced concrete structures reveal that such panels can be used in order to strengthen reinforced concrete frames. The present study examines the influence of infill panels on seismic behavior of RC frame structures. For this purpose, several low- and mid-rise RC frames (two-, four-, seven-, and ten story) were numerically investigated. Reinforced masonry infill panels were then placed within the frames and the models were subjected to several nonlinear incremental static and dynamic analyses. In order to determine the acceptance criteria and modeling parameters for frames as well as reinforced masonry panels, the Iranian Guideline for Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Masonry Buildings (Issue No. 376), the Iranian Guideline for Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Structures (Issue No. 360) and FEMA Guidelines (FEMA 273 and 356) were used. The results of analyses showed that the use of reinforced masonry infill panels in RC frame structures can have beneficial effects on structural performance. It was confirmed that the use of masonry infill panels results in an increment in strength and stiffness of the framed buildings, followed by a reduction in displacement demand for the structural systems.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.407-422
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• 2017

Evaluating seismic performance of urban structures for future earthquakes is one of the key prerequisites of rehabilitation programs. Irregular structures, as a specific case, are more susceptible to sustain earthquake damage than regular structures. The study here is to identify damage states of vertically irregular structures using the well-recognized Park-Ang damage index. For doing this, a regular 3-story reinforced concrete (RC) structure is first designed based on ACI-318 code, and a peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.3 g. Some known vertical irregularities such as setback, short column and soft story are then applied to the regular structure. All the four structures are subjected to seven different earthquakes accelerations and different amplitudes which are then analyzed using nonlinear dynamic procedure. The damage indices of the structures are then accounted for using the pointed out damage index. The results show that the structure with soft story irregularity sustains more damage in all the earthquake records than the other structures. The least damage belongs the regular structure showing that different earthquake with different accelerations and amplitudes have no significant effect on the regular structures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.703-731
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• 2013

In order to verify the applicability of buckling restrained braces (BRB's) and fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets to the seismic strengthening of a low-rise RC building having the irregularities of a soft/weak story and torsion at the ground story, a series of earthquake simulation tests were conducted on a 1:5 scale RC building model before, and after, the strengthening, and these test results are compared and analyzed, to check the effectiveness of the strengthening. Based on the investigations, the following conclusions are made: (1) The BRB's revealed significant slips at the joint with the existing RC beam, up-lifts of columns from RC foundations and displacements due to the flexibility of foundations, and final failure due to the buckling and fracture of base joint angles. The lateral stiffness appeared to be, thereby, as low as one seventh of the intended value, which led to a large yield displacement and, therefore, the BRB's could not dissipate seismic input energy as desired within the range of anticipated displacements. (2) Although the strengthened model did not behave as desired, great enhancement in earthquake resistance was achieved through an approximate 50% increase in the lateral resistance of the wall, due to the axial constraint by the peripheral BRB frames. Finally, (3) whereas in the original model, base torsion was resisted by both the inner core walls and the peripheral frames, the strengthened model resisted most of the base torsion with the peripheral frames, after yielding of the inner core walls, and represented dual values of torsion stiffness, depending on the yielding of core walls.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.75-89
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• 2019

The paper presents experimental and numerical studies carried out on low-rise RC frames, typically found in developing countries. Shake table tests were conducted on 1:3 reduced scaled two-story RC frames that included a code conforming SMRF model and another non-compliant model. The later was similar to the code conforming model, except, it was prepared in concrete having strength 33% lower than the design specified, which is commonly found in the region. The models were tested on shake table, through multiple excitations, using acceleration time history of 1994 Northridge earthquake, which was linearly scaled for multi-levels excitations in order to study the structures' damage mechanism and measure the structural response. A representative numerical model was prepared in finite element based program SeismoStruct, simulating the observed local damage mechanisms (bar-slip and joint shear hinging), for seismic analysis of RC frames having weaker beam-column joints. A suite of spectrum compatible acceleration records was obtained from PEER for incremental dynamic analysis of considered RC frames. The seismic performance of considered RC frames was quantified in terms of seismic response parameters (seismic response modification, overstrength and displacement amplification factors), for critical comparison.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.137-148
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• 2019

Korean piloti-type buildings are comprised of pilotis in the first story and shear walls in the upper stories. This vertical irregularity causes excessive lateral plastic deformation on the first story while the upper stories stay elastic. Meanwhile, asymmetric position of structural components such as core walls and columns of RC piloti-type buildings tends to produce torsional irregularities of the structures. Korean Building Code(KBC2016) requires the special seismic load and torsional amplification factor to apply to the piloti-type buildings lower than six-story or 20m if it has vertical and torsional irregularities when the building corresponds to seismic design category C or D. Many Korean low-rised RC buildings fall into the class. Therefore, the special earthquake load and torsional amplification factor are often applied to a building simultaneously. However, it has not been studied enough how much influence each parameter has on buildings with vertical and torsional irregularities at the same time. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of factor special seismic load and torsional amplification on seismic performance of irregular buildings. In this study, a damaged 4^th story piloti-type building by the Pohang earthquake was selected and the earthquake response analysis was carried out with various seismic design methods by the KBC 2016. The effect of the design parameters on seismic performance was analyzed by the dynamic analysis of models with special seismic load and torsional amplification factor based on the selected building. It was concluded that the application of the torsional amplification factor to the reference model to which special seismic design was applied, does not significantly affect the seismic performance.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.1315-1330
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• 2016

This study investigates ground motion parameters and their damage potential for building type structures. It focuses on low and mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings that are important portion of the existing building stock under seismic risk in many countries. Correlations of 19 parameters of 466 earthquake records with nonlinear displacement demands of 1056 Single Degree of Freedom (SDOF) systems are investigated. Properties of SDOF systems are established to represent RC building construction practice. The correlation of damage and ground motion characteristics is examined with respect to number of story and site classes. Equations for average nonlinear displacement demands of considered RC buildings are given for some of the ground motion parameters. Velocity related parameters are generally found to have better results than the acceleration, displacement and frequency related ones. Correlation of the parameters may be expected to decrease with increasing intensity of seismic event. Velocity Spectrum Intensity and Peak Ground Velocity have been found to have the highest correlation values for almost all site classes and number of story groups. Common parameter of Peak Ground Acceleration has lower correlation with damage when compared to them and some other parameters like Effective Design Acceleration and Characteristic Intensity.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.553-564
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• 2022

Many existing reinforced concrete (RC) structures need to be strengthening for reason such as poor construction quality, low ductility or designing without considering seismic effects. One of the strengthening methods is strengthening technique with eccentrically braced frames (EBFs). The characteristic element of these systems is the link element and its length is very important in terms of seismic behavior. The link element of Y shaped EBF systems (YEBFs) is designed as a short shear element. Different limits are suggested in the literature for the link length. This study to aim experimentally investigate the effect of the link length for the suggested limits on the behavior of the RC frame system and efficiency of strengthening technique. For this purpose, a total of 5 single story, single span RC frame specimens were produced. The design of the RC frames was made considering seismic design deficiencies. Four of the produced specimens were strengthened and one of them remained as bare specimen. The steel YEBFs were used in strengthening the RC frame and the link was designed as a shear element that have different length with respect to suggested limits in literature. The length of links was determined as 50mm, 100mm, 150mm and 200mm. All of the specimens were tested under cyclic loads. The obtained results show that the strengthening technique improved the energy consumption and lateral load bearing capacities of the bare RC specimen. Moreover, it is concluded that the specimens YB-2 and YB-3 showed better performance than the other specimens, especially in energy consumption and ductility.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.66-73
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• 2009

Since the school buildings are generally used as public shelters when the natural disasters such as flood and earthquake occur, it must be designed to show enough structural performance when subject to earthquake. Major failure mode of the school buildings observed in past earthquakes were shear failure of column of which length is shortened by infilled masonry blocks. In this study, the seismic risk of the reinforced concrete school building structure was evaluated by using the seismic performance evaluation methods of low-story RC structures developed in Japan and the required seismic performance index which is obtained according to the KBC2008 seismic hazard map and soil types. In this paper, the seismic performance of the school building is evaluated by considering this short-column effects, building shape and deterioration.