Comparison of R/C buildings with a soft-storey irregularity with respect to various national building codes

OpenAlex İngilizce

In the design of earthquake-resistant reinforced-concrete structural systems, the necessity to construct a regular structure is one of the main principles.Building irregularities generally become obvious with the effect of a seismic load.It is crucial that the irregularities of structural systems should be considered properly with respect to the conditions determined by the building codes.In this study, the soft-storey irregularity that causes most of the losses and damage in earthquakes was investigated with respect to the criterions of various national building codes.Eleven sub-models were produced on the basis of a general building model, and they were analyzed with respect to the conditions of the codes relating to the soft-storey phenomenon using the SAP 2000 structural-analysis program.The first-storey heights of the models were different from each other while all the other parameters and the geometries were the same.In this way, the codes were compared in terms of the effect of the storey height on the formation of a soft storey.Eventually, it was observed that, especially in the Japanese Seismic Code, the soft-storey irregularity is handled very sensibly and safely.