• 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.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.167-186
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• 2007

Ductility based design of reinforced concrete structures implicitly assumes certain damage under the action of a design basis earthquake. The damage undergone by a structure needs to be quantified, so as to assess the post-seismic reparability and functionality of the structure. The paper presents an analytical method of quantification and location of seismic damage, through system identification methods. It may be noted that soft ground storied buildings are the major casualties in any earthquake and hence the example structure is a soft or weak first storied one, whose seismic response and temporal variation of damage are computed using a non-linear dynamic analysis program (IDARC) and compared with a normal structure. Time period based damage identification model is used and suitably calibrated with classic damage models. Regenerated stiffness of the three degrees of freedom model (for the three storied frame) is used to locate the damage, both on-line as well as after the seismic event. Multi resolution analysis using wavelets is also used for localized damage identification for soft storey columns.