• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.19-33
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• 2015

Open ground storey (OGS) buildings are characterized by the sudden reduction of stiffness in the ground storey with respect to the upper infilled storeys. During earthquakes, this vertical irregularity may result in accumulated damage in the ground storey members of OGS buildings without much damage in the upper storeys. Hence, the structural design of OGS buildings needs special attention. The present study suggests a modification of existing displacement-based design (DBD) procedure by proposing a new lateral load distribution. The increased demands of ground storey members of OGS buildings are estimated based on non-linear time history analysis results of four sets of bare and OGS frames having four to ten storey heights. The relationship between the increased demand and the relative stiffness of ground storey (with respect to upper storeys) is taken as the criterion for developing the expression for the design lateral load. It is also observed that under far-field earthquakes, there is a decrease in the ground storey drift of OGS frames as the height of the frame increases, whereas there is no such reduction when these frames are subjected to near-field earthquakes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.381-394
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• 2003

While constructing multistorey buildings with reinforced concrete framed structures it is a common practice to provide parking space for vehicles at the ground floor level. This floor will generally consist of open frames without any infilled walls and is called an open-storey. From a post disaster damage survey carried out, it was noticed that during the January 26, 2001 Bhuj (Gujarat, India) earthquake, a large number of reinforced concrete framed buildings with open-storey at ground floor level, suffered extensive damage and in some cases catastrophic collapse. This has brought into sharp focus the need to carry out systematic studies on the seismic vulnerability of such buildings. Determination of vulnerability requires realistic structural response estimations taking into account the stochasticity in the loading and the system parameters. The stochastic finite element method can be effectively used to model the random fields while carrying out such studies. This paper presents the details of stochastic finite element analysis of a five-storey three-bay reinforced concrete framed structure with open-storey subjected to standard seismic excitation. In the present study, only the stochasticity in the system parameters is considered. The stochastic finite element method used for carrying out the analysis is based on perturbation technique. Each random field representing the stochastic geometry/material property is discretised into correlated random variables using spatial averaging technique. The uncertainties in geometry and material properties are modelled using the first two moments of the corresponding parameters. In evaluating the stochastic response, the cross-sectional area and Young' modulus are considered as independent random fields. To study the influence of correlation length of random fields, different correlation lengths are considered for random field discretisation. The spatial expectations and covariances for displacement response at any time instant are obtained as the output. The effect of open-storey is modelled by suitably considering the stiffness of infilled walls in the upper storey using cross bracing. In order to account for changes in soil conditions during strong motion earthquakes, both fixed and hinged supports are considered. The results of the stochastic finite element based seismic analysis of reinforced concrete framed structures reported in this paper demonstrate the importance of considering the effect of open-storey with appropriate support conditions to estimate the realistic response of buildings subjected to earthquakes.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.437-448
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• 2017

Soft or extreme soft storeys in multi-storied buildings cause localized damage (and even collapse) during strong earthquake shaking. The presence of such soft or extremely soft storey is identified through provisions of vertical stiffness irregularity in seismic design codes. Identification of the irregularity in a building requires estimation of lateral translational stiffness of each storey. Estimation of lateral translational stiffness can be an arduous task. A simple procedure is presented to estimate storey stiffness using only properties of fundamental lateral translational mode of oscillation (namely natural period and associated mode shape), which are readily available to designers at the end of analysis stage. In addition, simplified analytical expressions are provided towards identifying stiffness irregularity. Results of linear elastic time-history analyses indicate that the proposed procedure captures the irregularity in storey stiffness in both low- and mid-rise buildings.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.603-619
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• 2014

Soft storey buildings are characterised by having a storey that has a large amount of open space. This soft storey creates a major weak point during an earthquake. As the soft stories are typically associated with retail spaces and parking garages, they are often on the lower levels of tall building structures. Thus, when these stories collapse, the entire building can also collapse, causing serious structural damage that may render the structure completely unusable. The use of special soft storey is predominant in the tall building structures constructed by several local developers, making the issue important for local building structures. In this study, the effect of the incorporation of an isolator on the seismic behaviour of tall building structures is examined. The structures are subjected to earthquakes typical of the local city, and the isolator is incorporated with the appropriate isolator time period and damping ratio. A FEM-based computational relationship is proposed to increase the storey height so as to incorporate the isolator with the same time period and damping ratio for both a lead rubber bearing (LRB) and high-damping rubber bearing (HDRB). The study demonstrates that the values of the FEM-based structural design parameters are greatly reduced when the isolator is used. It is more beneficial to incorporate a LRB than a HDRB.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.523-545
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• 2013

In this study, the effect of presence and distribution of masonry infill walls on the mid-rise steel frame structures having soft ground storey was evaluated by implementing finite element (FE) methods. Masonry infill walls were distributed randomly in the upper storey keeping the ground storey open without any infill walls, thus generating the worst case scenario for seismic events. It was observed from the analysis that there was an increase in the seismic design forces, moments and base shear in presence of randomly distributed masonry infill walls which underlines that these design values need to be amplified when designing a mid-rise soft ground storey steel frame with randomly distributed masonry infill. In addition, it was found that the overstrength related force modification factor increased and the ductility related force modification factor decreased with the increase in the amount of masonry infilled bays and panels. These must be accounted for in the design of mid-rise steel frames. Based on the FE analysis results on two mid-rise steel frames, design equations were proposed for determining the over strength and the ductility related force modification factors. However, it was recommended that these equations to be generalized for other steel frame structure systems based on an extensive analysis.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.2 no.6
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• pp.423-437
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• 2005

In this study two single-bay, three-storey space frames, one with brick masonry infill in the second and third floors representing a soft-storey frame and the other without infill were designed and their 1:3 scale models were constructed according to non-seismic detailing and the similitude law. The models were excited with an intensity of earthquake motion as specified in the form of response spectrum in Indian seismic code IS 1893-2002 using a shake table. The seismic responses of the soft-storey frame such as fundamental frequency, mode shape, base shear and stiffness were compared with that of the bare frame. It was observed that the presence of open ground floor in the soft-storey infilled frame reduced the natural frequency by 30%. The shear demand in the soft-storey frame was found to be more than two and a half times greater than that in the bare frame. From the mode shape it was found that, the bare frame vibrated in the flexure mode whereas the soft-storey frame vibrated in the shear mode. The frames were tested to failure and the damaged soft-storey frame was retrofitted with concrete jacketing and, subjected to same earthquake motions as the original frames. Pushover analysis was carried out using the software package SAP 2000 to validate the test results. The performance point was obtained for all the frames under study, therefore the frames were found to be adequate for gravity loads and moderate earthquakes. It was concluded that the global nonlinear seismic response of reinforced concrete frames with masonry infill can be adequately simulated using static nonlinear pushover analysis.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.95-107
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• 2009

A method for vibration analysis of asymmetric shear wall and Thin walled open section structures is presented in this paper. The whole structure is idealized as an equivalent bending-warping torsion beam in this method. The governing differential equations of equivalent bending-warping torsion beam are formulated using continuum approach and posed in the form of simple storey transfer matrix. By using the storey transfer matrices and point transfer matrices which consider the inertial forces, system transfer matrix is obtained. Natural frequencies can be calculated by applying the boundary conditions. The structural properties of building may change in the proposed method. A numerical example has been solved at the end of study by a program written in MATLAB to verify the presented method. The results of this example display the agreement between the proposed method and the other valid method given in literature.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.383-397
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• 2018

Traditional base isolation systems focus on isolating the seismic response of a structure in the horizontal direction. However, in regions where the vertical earthquake excitation is significant (such as near-fault region), a traditional base-isolated building exhibits a significant vertical vibration. To eliminate this shortcoming, a rocking-isolated system named Telescopic Column (TC) is proposed in this paper. Detailed rocking and isolation mechanism of the TC system is presented. The seismic performance of the TC is compared with the traditional elastomeric bearing (EB) and friction pendulum (FP) base-isolated systems. A 4-storey reinforced concrete moment-resisting frame (RC-MRF) is selected as the reference superstructure. The seismic response of the reference superstructure in terms of column axial forces, base shears, floor accelerations, inter-storey drift ratios (IDR) and collapse margin ratios (CMRs) are evaluated using OpenSees. The results of the nonlinear dynamic analysis subjected to multi-directional earthquake excitations show that the superstructure equipped with the newly proposed TC is more resilient and exhibits a superior response with higher margin of safety against collapse when compared with the same superstructure with the traditional base-isolation (BI) system.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.109-117
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• 2005

The women's roles In 21s1 century in Korea is increasing as the industry, economy is growing and changing rapidly; thus raising the necessity and importance of early learning. Naturally the importance and needs of children's day-care center is increasing both in quantitative and quality matters, there needs for much improvements. This study selected 8 workshop day-care centers in Seoul area, where most day-care centers are located, and analyzed interior spaces; thus presenting the appropriate model of interior space in child day-care center. Starting with, examining theologically, this study focused on the history of child day-care center and the 8 selected day-care centers in Seoul. By analyzing the operation status, blue prints, and picture, this study focused on improving the interior spaces in day-care centers. The presented improvement in spaces are the fellowing, First, half of day-care centers in workshops had independent buildings and most were multi-storey building. Second, running status vary. The open hours and number of teachers were fine but the budgets ratio of the employer and the worker ratio needed improvements. Third, there is need for detailed more improvement In managing area, educational area, and service area. It recommendable for spaces of day-care centers in workshops to be a single-storey building with managing and service space placed In center with educational rooms on each sides, with single hall way.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1449-1466
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• 2015

Mixed structures consist of two parts: a lower part and an upper part. The lower part is usually made of concrete while the upper part is made of steel. Analyzing these structures is complicated and code-based design of them has many associated problems. In this research, the seismic behavior of mixed structures which have reinforced concrete frames and shear walls in their lower storeys and steel frames with bracing in their upper storeys were studied. For this purpose, seventeen structures in three groups of 5, 9 and 15 storey structures with different numbers of concrete and steel storeys were designed. Static pushover analysis, linear dynamic analysis and incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) using 15 earthquake records were performed by OpenSees software. Seismic parameters such as period, response modification factor and ductility factor were then obtained for the mixed (hybrid) structures using more than 4600 nonlinear dynamic analysis and used in the regression analysis for achieving proper formula. Finally, some formulas, effective in designing such structures, are presented for the mentioned parameters. According to the results obtained from this research, the response modification factor values of mixed structures are lower compared to those of steel or concrete ones with the same heights. This fact might be due to the irregularities of stiffness, mass, etc., at different heights of the structure. It should be mentioned that for the first time, the performance and seismic response of such structures were studied against real earthquake accelerations using nonlinear dynamic analysis, andresponse modification factor was obtained by IDA.