Effect of RC structural wall area on seismic response of open ground storey RC buildings

G. Vijay
Department of Civil Engineering, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology Surat, India

K. Dasgupta & C. V. R. Murty

Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India

ABSTRACT Reinforced Concrete (RC) frame buildings with open ground storey are common in urban construction of developing countries. Structural walls are used to reduce the irregularity in the ground storey. The present study investigates the influence of RC structural wall areas on seismic vulnerability of these buildings. Typical five-storied RC frame-masonry infill buildings, with varying structural wall areas, are designed as per Indian Seismic Design Codes. Both thickness and length of those walls are varied, along with their locations in the outer periphery. Seismic shear capacity and lateral stiffness characteristics of these buildings are estimated using displacement-based nonlinear pushover analyses. Shear capacity and stiffness characteristics are significantly improved and flexural failure of RC members is mobilised with increasing wall areas. Structural wall area of at least 2% of building plan area seems desirable for ensuring improved seismic performance of typical 5-storey buildings. 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Open ground storey RC frame buildings with brick masonry infill walls are common in urban India and south-east Asian countries (Fig. 1a). The open ground storey of these buildings leads to sudden discontinuities in their lateral stiffness and strength (Arlekar et. al. 1997). Increased seismic vulnerability of these buildings was evident during 2001 Bhuj earthquake in which more than 400 open ground storey buildings collapsed (Fig. 1b) (Murty et. al. 2002). Seismic deficiencies of these buildings were investigated in analytical studies also (Mahashabde et. al. 2003).

(a)

(b)

Figure 1. (a) Typical open ground storey building with car parking facility, and (b) collapse of open ground storey RC frame buildings during 2001 Bhuj earthquake.

In multistoried RC frame-wall buildings, primary lateral resistance during severe earthquake shaking

Paper Number 143

depends on floor plan density of RC structural walls. Floor plan density of walls is determined by the ratio of total plan area of structural walls and the corresponding floor plan area. In Chile (Wallace and Moehle 1989) and other countries, structural walls are provided with an average floor plan density of 1-4%. The implication of floor plan density on seismic performance of open ground storey buildings has not been investigated. 1.2 Objective Hypothetical five-storeyed open ground storey RC frame buildings with brick masonry infills are considered for the present study. Length and thickness of walls are varied to obtain different wall areas. Firstly, buildings are analysed and frame members designed as per the Indian Seismic Code Provisions (IS 13920 1996). Secondly, using displacement-based pushover analysis seismic performances of the buildings are compared on the basis of (a) lateral strength, (b) lateral stiffness, (c) lateral deformability, and (d) failure modes. 2 STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS AND DESIGN 2.1 Configuration The structural system of the hypothetical building (Fig. 2) consists of RC beams, columns and slabs with brick masonry infills. The sizes of beams (225mm300mm) and columns (300mm300mm) are based on seismic detailing requirements of IS 13920, and strong column-weak beam design philosophy. A grid of beams is added at the ground floor level to reduce the unsupported height of column in open ground storey. Structural walls are added in selected panels along outer perimeter to facilitate car parking in open ground storey, and increase torsional resistance of the building. Length and thickness of walls are adjusted in such a way that equal wall area is provided along both directions. In the present study, the original open ground storey building is referred to as Model A. Buildings with total wall areas of 2%, 3%, 4% and 5% of floor plan areas are referred to as Models B, C, D and E, respectively. The wall lengths are same in Models B and C, and in models D and E; the thickness alone is varied.
A 3.20m B 2.74m C 3.20m D 1 3.04m 3.20m 3.04m 2 3 (a) 4 3.20m 3.04m 5 6 3.04m 3.04m 3.04m 1.50m (b) 3.04m 3.04m

Figure 2. Geometrical configuration and arrangement of structural members: (a) typical floor plan, and (b) elevation on gridline (1).

2.2 Modeling Beams and columns are modeled using 2-noded space frame elements in the structural analysis program SAP2000 V10.1.0 (CSI 2006), and roof slab, floor slab and landing slabs of staircase using 4noded area elements. Compatibility of structural actions between area elements and the adjoining 2

frame elements is ensured by line constraints along the edges of each area element. All six degrees of freedom are restrained at the ground nodes. The material characteristics considered in the present study are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Material properties used for structural analysis

Material Concrete Steel

Mass Density (kg/m3) 2548 7850

Unit Weight (kN/m3) 25 77

Grades of Materials M20 Fe415

Modulus of Elasticity (MPa) 22,360 2,00,000

Poissons Ratio 0.15 0.30

The waist slabs of staircase are modeled using equivalent frame elements. In traditional RC frame buildings, intermediate beams supporting half landing slabs reduce effective height of columns on outer perimeter this leads to short-column failure in the primary lateral resistant frame (Fig. 3a). This possibility is precluded in the present study by modifying the shape of landing slab and supporting adjoining landing beams on additional columns (Fig. 3b). Tensile characteristics of brick masonry infills are modeled using 2-noded gap elements (CSI 2006) along the diagonal length of panel (Fig. 3c). The structural walls are modeled using equivalent vertical frame elements at center-line location of wall panel. Portion of the beams are made rigid that run along the structural walls at different floor levels (Agarwal and Shrikhande 2006); modulus of elasticity of concrete at those locations is assigned as ten times the value given in Table 1. Infills are modeled using equivalent diagonal strut model (Saneinejad and Hobbs 1995). In models B, C, D and E, thickness of walls (Table 2) is adjusted to ensure pure translational natural mode shape of vibration along both the principal directions in plan (Vijay 2006).

3 A B 1.52m

Landing Slab

4 1.52m

3 4@0.76m

4 Beam Column Beam Column Gap Elements Element in tension

3.04m (a) (b) (c) Figure 3. Modeling of landing slab between two floors: (a) conventional method and (b) proposed method, and (c) behaviour of gap elements under lateral forces.

Table 2. Structural wall details of 5-storeyed buildings

Model B C D E Location Thickness (mm) Location Thickness (mm) Location Thickness (mm) Location Thickness (mm) AB1 220 AB1 360 AC1 280 AC1 330 AB6 220 AB6 360 AB6 280 AB6 330

Details 12D 150 12D 260 12D 320 12D 400 34A 150 34A 300 34A 150 34A 150 56D 170 56D 260 AB6 280 AB6 330

Wall Area (%) 2 3 BC6 260 BC6 330 56D 280 56D 360 4 5

2.3 Structural Analysis and Design For all buildings, internal forces are obtained by linear elastic analysis under three load cases, namely (a) Dead Load DL, (b) Live Load LL, and (c) Earthquake Load EL. Weight of infill wall is assigned on floor beam as uniformly distributed line load. In LL case, uniformly distributed live loads of intensities 0.75kN/m2 and 1.5kN/m2 are applied on roof and floor slabs. In EL case, equivalent static lateral forces on the buildings are obtained (IS:1893(Part 1) 2002) considering soft soil, seismic zone V, Importance Factor 1.0 and Response Reduction Factor 5.0. Member internal forces for structural design are obtained for the following load combinations (IS:1893(Part 1) 2002):

1.5(DL + LL )
1.2(DL + LL EL X )

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

1.2(DL + LL ELY )
1.5(DL EL X )

1.5(DL ELY )
0.9DL 1.5EL X

0.9DL 1.5ELY

where and are the lateral forces applied along X and Y-directions respectively for EL case. RC members of building A are designed as per gravity design philosophy that is being adopted in the traditional design practice of open ground storey buildings. In buildings B, C, D and E, all RC elements including structural walls in lateral force resisting frame are designed for necessary strength, stiffness and ductility as per Indian Ductile Detailing Code. Elements in other panels along the same direction are designed as per gravity design philosophy. 3 SEISMIC EVALUATION Seismic performances of buildings A, B, C, D and E are evaluated by displacement-based nonlinear static pushover analysis using structural analysis program SAP2000 (CSI 2006). 3.1 Hinge Properties The sequence of hinges in frame members is determined using pushover analysis, by assigning lumped

plastic hinges at critical sections of frame members. The following types of plastic hinges are considered: (i) Moment-rotation (M ) hinge: For a particular axial force, moment-rotation characteristic (Fig. 4a) of a frame member with lumped plasticity gives a measure of rotation ductility capacity of the member. (ii) Axial force-moment (P M ) Hinge: Axial force-moment curve for the plastic hinge section limits the flexural capacity at different stages during pushover analysis. Both the idealised M and P M curves (Fig. 4b) are obtained by basic concepts of mechanics (Dasgupta 2000). (iii) Shear force-shear displacement (V ) Hinge: The idealized shear hinge characteristic of a frame member cross-section (Fig. 4c) gives a measure of shear failure at the plastic hinge section.

M Mu My
Failure Point Yield Point

P
Pt
Tension

V Vmax

M
Balance Point

(Vs )max
y
max
(c)

0.2M y

y
(a)

Pc

Compression

(b)

Figure 4. Idealized plastic hinge properties assigned as input to SAP2000: (a) M hinge, (b) P M hinge, and (c) V hinge.

Plastic hinge properties are obtained using actual material characteristics. In beams and columns, hinges are assigned at sections at a distance of D / 2 from each end, where D is the depth of member. For walls, hinges are assigned at a single location, i.e., at a distance of D / 2 from the base. 3.2 Pushover Analysis In displacement-based monotonic lateral pushover analysis, horizontal displacement of a particular node at roof level in a particular direction is monitored. The building frame is first subjected to dead and live loads and then subjected to specified incremental lateral translations at roof level. The final displacement level at collapse gives a measure of the buildings deformation capacity. The salient observations from pushover analyses are: (a) Building A exhibits typical open ground storey behavior with formation of shear hinges in ground storey columns. Abrupt decrease of strength and stiffness from upper stories to ground storey imposes high shear demand on the columns. Consequently, the lateral strength level of Building A is the lowest among all the buildings (Figs. 5a and 5b). (b) In buildings B, C, D and E, axial force-moment hinges are formed before shear hinges in walls (Figs. 6a and 6b) and at the bottom of ground storey columns. Thus, desirable seismic behavior is observed in these buildings. Consequently, lateral strength levels of buildings B, C, D and E are higher than that of building A (Figs. 5a and 5b). (c) Lateral stiffness of buildings increase significantly with increased wall area (Figs. 5a and 5b). Buildings B and C have same locations of structural walls but different thickness. Since thickness of section has very little effect on lateral stiffness of individual member, lateral stiffness of the two buildings is almost the same along both directions. The same behaviour is observed for buildings D and E also. The increase in stiffness of buildings B and D as compared to that of building A is due to

addition of structural walls in the direction of pushover analysis.

0.45 Normalised Base Shear 0.36 0.27 0.18 0.09 0 0 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 (a) D B A E C 0.72 0.54 0.36 0.18 0 B A 0.12 0 0.16 0.04 0.08 Normalised Roof Displacement (%) (b) E D C

Normalised Roof Displacement (%)

Figure 5. Influence of wall area on seismic performance of buildings: capacity curves for pushover analyses along (a) Y-direction, and (b) X-direction.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 6. Flexural behaviour of frame-wall buildings with different wall area ratios: plastic hinges at ultimate deformation stage of pushover analysis along X-direction for (a) 2%, and (b) 3% wall areas, and along Ydirection for (c) 2% and 3% wall areas.

(d) Along Y-direction, buildings C, D and E have masonry infills in upper storeys. This resulted in stiffness irregularity between upper storeys and ground storey, and hence hinges were formed only in ground storey columns. On the other hand, along X-direction, stiffness irregularity was absent in these buildings and hence hinges were formed throughout the height of building. (e) In buildings B, C, D and E, pushover analysis is terminated due to torsional instability arising from formation of hinges in selective members. Although the geometric configurations are designed to exhibit pure translational mode shapes under elastic conditions, different strength gets mobilized in vertical members on selective hinge formation. This leads to strength asymmetry in different regions under inelastic conditions which manifests in asymmetric global deformation pattern as twisting of building. Thus, both building configuration and member strength contribute significantly to seismic performance of open ground storey buildings. Complete removal of twisting mode of deformation may increase the deformation capacity of the building. (f) Deformation capacity and ultimate lateral strength of the buildings are not achieved in the present study.

4 CONCLUSIONS The following salient conclusions are drawn from the present study: (a) Increase in area of RC structural walls, properly designed and suitably located in a building, enhances strength and stiffness of RC frame-wall building. This may lead to prevention of open ground storey collapse during severe earthquake shaking. (b) Increasing wall area above 2% of plinth area may not be beneficial for typical 5-storey buildings. (c) For desirable seismic performance of RC wall-frame buildings, increasing wall length is more beneficial than thickness, for the same increase in wall area. Extensive studies are required for recommendation of RC wall area in code provisions for seismic design of wall-frame buildings. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study is part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Grant for Excellence (SURGE) program at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. 6 REFERENCES Agarwal, P. & Shrikhande, M. 2006. Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures. New Delhi: PrenticeHall of India Private Limited. Arlekar, J.N., Jain, S.K. & Murty, C.V.R. Seismic Response of RC Frame Buildings with Soft First Storey. CBRI Golden Jubilee Conference on Natural Hazards in Urban Habitat; Proc. nat. symp. 10-11 November 1997. New Delhi. CSI. 2006. SAP2000 Integrated Software for Structural Analysis and Design. Computers and Structures Inc. Berkeley. Dasgupta P. 2000. Effect of Confinement on Strength and Ductility of Large RC Hollow Sections. Master of Technology Thesis, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. IS:13920-1993. 1996. Indian Standard Code for Ductile Detailing of Reinforced Concrete Structures Subjected to Seismic Forces Code of Practice. New Delhi: Bureau of Indian Standards, . IS:1893(Part 1)-2002. 2002. Indian Standard Criteria of Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures. Bureau of Indian Standards: New Delhi. K Saneinejad, A. & Hobbs, B. 1995. Inelastic Design of Infilled Frame. Journal of Structural Engineering, ASCE, Vol 121(4) 634-650. Mahashabde, A.V., Dasgupta, K. & Murty, C.V.R. 2003. Seismic Strengthening of Gravity Load Designed RC Frame Buildings. 4th International Symposium on Earthquake Engineering; Proc. int. symp. Tehran. Murty, C.V.R., Goel, R.K. & Goyal, A. 2002. Reinforced Concrete Buildings. Chapter in Bhuj India Earthquake of January 26, 2001 Reconnaissance Report, Supplement A to Earthquake Spectra, A Professional Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. 149-185. Vijay, G. 2006. Effect of Area of RC Structural Walls on Seismic Performance of RC Buildings with Masonry Infills and Open Ground Storeys. SURGE Report, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. Wallace, J.W. & Moehle, J.P. 1989. The 1985 Chile Earthquake: An Evaluation of Structural Requirements for Bearing Wall Buildings. Report No. UCB/EERC-89/05, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, Berkeley, USA.