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Running Head: Designing 2 storey building for sustainability designing for life
[Name of Writer]
[Name of Institution]
Designing 2 storey building 2
Contents
Contents........................................................................................................... 2
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION..............................................................................5
Introduction ..................................................................................................5
Statement of the problem ............................................................................7
Purpose of the study.....................................................................................7
Objectives and scope ...................................................................................7
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE........................................................9
Introduction ..................................................................................................9
Reinforced Concrete Building Frames...........................................................9
Building design .............................................................................................9
Number of Stories.......................................................................................13
Models of Material Behavior........................................................................14
Number of Seismic Events Used..................................................................15
Number of Seismic Components Used. ......................................................16
CHAPTER 3.....................................................................................................19
MULTI-STORY BUILDING MODEL.....................................................................19
Introduction.................................................................................................19
Prototype Building Model............................................................................19
Layout of Frames........................................................................................20
Prototype Frame.........................................................................................21
Frame Configuration...................................................................................21
Plastic Mechanisms Developed by a Frame................................................22
Mathematical Model of Frame.....................................................................23
F-function for a Frame.................................................................................23
Modification of Stiffness or Strength of Frame............................................24
Mathematical Model of the Building............................................................25
CHAPTER 4.....................................................................................................26
DESIGN OF PROTOTYPE BUILDINGS................................................................26
4.1 Introduction...........................................................................................26
4.2 One Story Building................................................................................28
Designing 2 storey building 3
List of Figure
Figure 1: Story plan view and location of the reference nodes......................20
Figure 2: Prototype Frame Configuration.......................................................22
Figure 3: Static degrees of freedom in the frame...........................................24
Designing 2 storey building 4
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
Introduction
Two-storey buildings have become an essential part of today’s architects due to
the growing population and limited space available. As innovative building designs are
two-storey buildings for life. This dissertation offers a critical review of the two-storey
Natural calamities are also a matter of great concern for building designs and
materials used in building two-storey buildings. Every time a seismic event occurs
somewhere around the globe, Nature reminds us that there are still many things to be
done by practicing engineers to reach the goal of saving lives and property during these
extreme events. The after quake statistics tell us about large economic loses and
unacceptable number of lives lost. Many reasons can be found or argued about the causes
that lead to the collapse of some structures in these seismic events, ranging them from
plain negligence up to limitations on the knowledge the way structures behave during
strong seismic events. Therefore, there is a constant challenge to every engineer for a
hopefully can be applied in the design and construction of the reliable structures that
people needs. The intention of this dissertation is to focus on the design and materials
building floor/roof, that behavior is called torsional response. The effect of this
Designing 2 storey building 6
components of a building that in a hypothetical ideal building would not exist. The
concern arises when these demands were not anticipated by the engineer, and no
measures were taken to accommodate them. Even if the engineer clearly foresee that this
high strength or ductility demands would be induced, he has to deal with the current code
recommendations to handle this issue, and arguably they are insufficient in some design
Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures" code, in the USA, and the Building
Code for the Federal District, in Mexico City. Experiences from past seismic events
around the globe, have taught us that a significant number of collapsed structures had
serious problems in handling the torsion induced demands. Escobar and Ayala (1998)
report that a significant proportion of the observed damage in building structures during
the 1985 Mexican earthquake can be attributed to ill torsional behavior. They explain that
the eccentricity between the building's strength center and its mass center was relatively
large in some of these collapsed buildings, and the worst, surprisingly the eccentricities
are not perfectly symmetric and as some researchers (DeLaLlera and Chopra, 1994) have
shown before, accidental eccentricity and rotational components of the ground motions
Therefore, we must be prepared to confront this truth: all buildings will respond in
torsion during a seismic event, thus we need to know how to evaluate its magnitude and
sustainable two-storey buildings have been used and will continue to be used for
providing shelters, safety and conform to its lodgers. However, the building design is an
important consideration that affects the ability of the building to isolate the waste and
flexibility of the design and the choice of construction methods ( single connection ,
materials used and the design of a sustainable for life two-storey building. For this
purpose, this research focuses on the behavior of buildings designed with the criteria of
the philosophy of Capacity Design, i.e., buildings are capable of developing plastic
In the design practice a variety of structural systems are used. However it is not
realistic to attempt finding patterns of behavior for each one of these structural systems,
in the limited time available for this research. Thus, the research is restricted to study the
Designing 2 storey building 8
behavior of framed buildings. Simplified framed buildings are adopted to study this type
of structural system.
Within this context, the following specific objectives are pursued herein:
• Description of the mathematical model of a one story and a multi story prototype
buildings.
Introduction
The life cycle of concrete buildings is usually 40 to 90 years. However, during
this life cycle, buildings will often meet some circumstances, such as disasters, changing
functions, city reconstruction, or higher demand for the residence etc.; all of these
Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings in Asia or Europe built after World War II have been
used for about 50 years or more. It is obvious that such buildings, if built with low quality
material, lacking proper construction design or unsuitable geographical location are prone
system may be broadly classified into floor slabs, beams, columns, walls, and
foundations.
Building design
Earthquake Engineering is a body of knowledge that has been in continuous
development during a long period of time. This progress has been an evolutionary
process, most of the time, with occasional revolutionary jumps ahead, and sometimes
backwards.
Designing 2 storey building 10
The occurrence of some catastrophic seismic events around the world were the
source of most of the new knowledge, and a strong motivation to work on the problem.
Structural solutions used by the practicing engineers (designers), are tested by Nature
during their occurrence. Afterward, it appears that some ideas seemingly very good,
turned out to be bad solutions. Thus, academics and researchers have contributed to the
body of knowledge by reviewing the behavior of the solutions used by the engineers,
learning from the good behavior, but much more from the bad behavior and failures of
So, it has been cycles were designers have tried new structural solutions without
having a complete knowledge of their future behavior, and later researchers helped to
understand why their solutions failed or behaved in unexpected ways. This way, the
these cycles. Each cycle that, besides the personal worries and interests of engineers,
academics and researchers, has had a high cost in terms of lives and economic loses
One revolutionary event in the history of the Earthquake Engineering was the
proposal by Park and Paulay (1975) of a systematic method of design, based on the
structures around the world. Some of these structures surprised engineers and researchers
due to their capacity to resist unexpected extreme seismic events. These structures
showed extensive damage in non structural elements and localized plasticization, despite
systematic proposal by Park and Paulay. They called their design approach as the
philosophy of Capacity Design. With the publication of their book in 1975, this
philosophy started to spread out. De Buen (2004) tells that the Mexico City building code
was modified to include in its published 1976 edition, recommendations and procedures
to provide structures with the capacity to dissipate energy by developing non linear
In this context, it becomes clear why many works published before the 1970's
focused on the elastic behavior of buildings, and after that time, the research community
practice and research of Earthquake Engineering. In their early times, the computation
power provided by these machines was relatively small, but during the last 50 years, the
computer power has increased steadily. Wilson (2007) presents a short table describing
how the relative speed of different computer systems has changed with time.
The scope of the research made during this long period has been strongly
influenced by the available computer machines. This way, many early researches focused
linear behavior and using single seismic records, applied to the models in only one
In more recent times, published works reporting studies of multi story buildings
have emerged, considering non linear behavior of the material and using multiple seismic
Designing 2 storey building 12
records. This widening in scope occurred hand on hand with the increase in computer
power.
About the first half of the XX century, it was very common to have more
partitions and facade mansory walls in buildings. Also, most of the buildings were
relatively short in height. In those times, the torsional response was not an issue, as it is
nowadays. The "non structural" walls provided a large torsional strength and stiffness to
those buildings.
In the last 50 years, the new buildings have had fewer non structural walls and/or
new materials have substituted the masonry walls by light and fragile materials, like the
gypsum panel boards attached to wood or metallic studs. Also, first story walls (facing
the street side) have disappeared to give way to the wide windows required by modern
commercial buildings.
All these changes have had the effect of changing radically the actual lateral
strength, stiffness, and energy dissipation capacity of the modern buildings. More
important, these changes opened the window to conditions that amplified the problem of
the torsional response of buildings, turning this phenomenon into the big problem that has
been observed in recent strong seismic events. This way, the engineers, pushed by the
structural problem.
For the purposes of this research, the topics investigated by the researchers
interested in the problem of torsional response of buildings were reviewed. From the
perspective of the present time, it is easy to underestimate the importance of the work
Designing 2 storey building 13
done by the first researchers. However, it is unfair to judge their achievements based on
Number of Stories
The natural interest of researchers and designers is to study the dynamic response
of multistory buildings. The interest on these buildings is due to their use for residential,
the design spectrum accepted by the building code applicable to the site.
discipline, arguably in the 1950's, the solution of the mathematical model of multistory
buildings was impractical. Researchers had to use numerical methods to solve the
ordinary differential equations derived for the dynamic system, excited by an earthquake
time-history. Despite that linear behavior of the models was assumed, the amount of
Thus, researchers had to limit their studies to one story buildings. The one story
models were simple versions of realistic buildings. Usually, complete plane frames of the
building had to be modeled with a single shear beam (SB) element, and the layout of
Another reason to study one story buildings was to start learning from these
simpler cases, to move later to more complex cases (multistory buildings). Since that
time, one story models have been studied by different researchers. At the beginning, the
technological conditions forced researchers to use one story models, but in more recent
times, when the technological conditions have changed radically, disappearing many
As early as 1969, Anderson and Bertero worked with multistory steel frames
(1999) to observe their seismic behavior, when the frames can develop strong column-
weak beam plastic mechanisms. They did not study the torsional response of the building.
To the best knowledge of the author, there are scarce studies of torsional response of
multistory buildings done from the 1960's to the present time. Some studies were done
behavior was the linear elastic. Gradually, models of nonlinear behavior started to be
used in studies of dynamic response of buildings. The use of non linear models would be
the second epoch. This second epoch overlaps with the first.
Nowadays, linear elastic models are rarely used to evaluate the dynamic response
The first models of non linear behavior were simple models. One story buildings
were idealized with four frames, where each frame is substituted by a SB element. These
SB have an elastic perfect-plastic behavior. Many studies were done with this type of
models.
The main issue with these models is that the philosophy of Capacity Design
postulates strong column-weak beam plastic mechanisms as a design goal. Most recent
studies idealize framed structures with bar elements, to model columns and beams
individually. The non linear behavior is introduced into these elements using the concept
local phenomenon into a mathematical model easier to handle. The behavior of these PH
Designing 2 storey building 15
is modeled with an elastic perfect-plastic relationship (as used in this Dissertation). Other
models of material behavior that could be used are the bilinear relationships with strain
In recent studies, more sophisticated models are used. The advances in computer
machines and structural analysis software, has given to researchers the possibility of
including strength and stiffness degradation models. The inconvenient of these models is
that their reliability is limited, specially for reinforced concrete structures. However, it
seems reasonable to expect some changes in the observed patterns of behavior, with
respect to the ones observed for the less sophisticated models, e.g., the elastic perfect-
plastic relationship.
quality of the available recorded seismic events was limited. During those years, the "El
Centro 1940" earthquake became the prototype of an intense event, and it was used by
different researchers to do their investigations. Since the 70's the amount of recorded
events has steadily increased. Nowadays, researchers have a large set of these recorded
events. In this set, there are many events of much larger magnitude or duration than the
Older published papers and technical reports show results of analysis made using only
one earthquake record. Parametric studies were done using single seismic events, and
these results were, in some form, incorporated into the design codes of different
countries. The problem with this research results is that the accumulated evidence
demonstrates that different seismic events can have quite different characteristics.
Designing 2 storey building 16
To illustrate this point, in chapter 3 are presented the Fourier Spectra of the seismic
events included in the data set used in this Dissertation. These Spectra show clearly that
the frequency contents vary considerably for each event. There are other important
parameters that differ, i.e., total duration of the event, magnitude, distance to the
epicenter, etc. Nowadays, the research community recognizes the importance of using
more than one seismic event for performing basic research. Thus, it has become the norm
to use a set with many and diverse modified historic seismic events.
orthogonal components of the ground acceleration. Two horizontal and one vertical. One
or more of these components have been used to perform dynamic analysis of buildings.
Historically, these seismic records were included in the mathematical model in three
different variations:
1. Unidirectional seismic excitation Only one horizontal component of the seismic record
is used for the time history analysis. 2. Bidirectional seismic excitation The two
horizontal orthogonal components of the seismic record are used for the time history
analysis.
3. Tridirectional seismic excitation The two horizontal and the vertical orthogonal
components of the seismic record are used for the time history analysis. Many studies
excitations. Typically, the studied buildings have two or more parallel frames on one
direction, X, and two or more parallel frames in the orthogonal direction, Y. To handle
the fact that real earthquake ground motions have more than one component of
action is on Y direction and the orthogonal frames (on the X direction) do not provide
any opposition to the story rotation. The frames parallel to the earthquake action can
on Y direction and the orthogonal frames (on the X direction) provide opposition to the
story rotation. The frames parallel to the earthquake action can behave non linearly and
These concepts were created to make sense of results obtained from unrealistic seismic
excitations. Only in the context of unidirectional seismic actions these concepts make
sense.
More recently, bidirectional seismic actions have been used to perform studies on
torsional behavior of buildings. For this research, this is the type of seismic actions used.
When bidirectional seismic actions are used, instead of unidirectional, the results
bidirectional seismic actions is that the concepts of torsionally unrestrained and restrained
behavior can be observed. Patterns that cannot exist in buildings under unidirectional
seismic actions. Of course, bidirectional seismic actions are closer to a realistic modeling
The author did not find published research on torsional behavior of buildings, using
tridirectional seismic actions. However, in the near future, the inclusion of the vertical
component of the ground acceleration will become a requisite, to allow the evaluation of
Designing 2 storey building 18
changes of axial load in columns, due to the vertical accelerations, andtheir effects on the
Angle of Incidence of the Seismic Action. Seismology cannot provide to the designers
with a reliable prediction of the direction where the ground waves will come from in the
next earthquake. This direction is called the angle of attack, or the angle of incidence, of
the seismic event. Therefore, for design or research purposes, a decision needs to be
taken with respect to this parameter. Historically, there are three approaches used by
researchers with respect to the selection of the angle of incidence used in their
investigations:
Designing 2 storey building 19
CHAPTER 3
buildings with any number of stories. The developed mathematical model is intended to
represent a particular type of structural system used in buildings. The following sections
model and the multi story PB model are clarified. The multi story PB is defined by a set
of parameters described in this section. For the one story PB there is only one story level.
Thus only one mass center needs to be defined. For the multi story PB case, there are two
or more story levels and each one can have its mass center at a different location, respect
to the other story levels. Figure 1 shows the same conventions used for the one-story PB.
The story mass can have any distribution on the story layout. Thus, the location of the
mass center on the n-th story level is defined by the distances XcMn and YcMm
measured from the mass center to the conventional location of the master node. The
master node coincides with the origin of coordinates X-Y and is defined at the geometric
center of the postulated rectangular plan layout, for all the story levels.
Designing 2 storey building 20
the algorithm.
Layout of Frames
The structural system is idealized as made of two parallel plane frames in X
direction and two parallel plane frames in Y direction. The location of each frame is
defined in Table 6.1. The coordinates (Xj,Yj) correspond to an arbitrary point in the
vertical plane of the j-th frame. The fij angle is the angle between the j-th frame vertical
plane and the X axis. The prototype building is defined with frames parallel to the X or
the Y axis.
Table 1 1
The four plane frames interact only through their connection with the floor
consequence of these idealizations, columns and beams bend only in the vertical plane of
the corresponding frame, i.e., biaxial bending is ignored. The location of the static center
of rigidity is established with the same criteria used for the one-story PB.
The same procedure used to set up the static center of rigidity of one story
Prototype Frame
. The prototype frame is idealized as an interconnected set of columns and beams
contained in the same vertical plane, interacting to resist the inertia forces induced by the
seismic event. No gravitational load effects are considered in the evaluation of the state
of strain and stress in the material. The purpose of this assumption is to simplify the
mathematical model and to avoid the difficulty in establishing the most representative
initial state of stress and strain at the instant when the seismic event starts.
In general, the geometric and mechanical properties of the two frames in the X
direction can be different to the two frames in the Y direction, but the two frames in the
Frame Configuration
. The prototype frame is defined by two continuous lines of columns and one
beam at each story level, as shown in figure 2. The columns at one story level have
identical geometric and mechanical properties, but they can be different to the pair of
columns at the adjacent levels. The columns at the fist level are assumed to be fixed at
their lower end, and have a continuous moment and shear connection with the beam
Designing 2 storey building 22
located at their top. This simple structural system was chosen to facilitate the parametric
study.
identical properties, but the columns or beams at different levels can have different
properties.
beam (SCWB) plastic mechanism. Plastic hinges (PH) are used to model the plastic
deformations that could be developed at some beams or column ends. The occurrence of
these PH’s providing the global non linear behavior of the frame.
Designing 2 storey building 23
For one story frames, it is possible to enforce the developing of a SCWB plastic
mechanism, as imposed by the designer, but for multistory frames it is not possible to
attain this mechanism for all the possible lateral displacement patterns, which could be
The approach used hereafter is a trial and error procedure to dimension the frame
process is followed to obtain this function, which is a matrix function. This function
evaluates the internal reaction forces in the building. The F function is composed by the
addition of reaction forces at each one of the four frames. Therefore, the F function must
be defined for an isolated frame and then added with the other three frame F functions.
The march in time algorithm requires this functional relation to solve the IVP ODE
problem.
models. There are too many details that need to be solved to implement all these ideas in
a computer program; It is out of this research scope to present them completely and
exhaustively. Therefore, only some general details are presented in this chapter, to
illustrate some additional considerations required to implement the non linear dynamic
analysis of multi story buildings. One of the most obvious differences is that three DOF
are required per story level to define the kinematic state of the frame model. Figure 3a
Designing 2 storey building 24
shows these DOF. In the following deductions, the aim is to find the F-function for the
prototype frame, although the mathematical relations are developed for the equivalent
system.
is that Atii must be substituted by the corresponding Aun, which is calculated with the
equation 6.2. Aun is defined as the interstory drift. Aun = un-un-i (6.2) Another
important difference is that equation 5.3 must be adjusted to include the n stories.
Applying DSM standard procedures, the new relation between changes in the reaction
forces and the change in interstory displacements can be found. After these adjustments,
the remaining procedure is essentially the same used for one story frames.
stiffness and the ultimate lateral strength of the prototype frame. They are: K = stiffness
factor. fn = strength factor. The same relations 5.16 are applicable to multistory frames.
Designing 2 storey building 25
same used for one story buildings, but considering the additional degrees of freedom at
each additional story level. The original plus the additional degrees of freedom are stated
possible to develop the computer algorithm for the non linear dynamic analysis of
multistory buildings.
Designing 2 storey building 26
CHAPTER 4
National building codes, like the ASCE 7-05 code, and other national codes
(2006) refers that this philosophy of design is the brainchild of John Hollings, a New
Zealander design engineer. Holling's original proposal was extended and refined by
Robert Park and Tom Paulay (2006). Paulay and Priestley (1992) did a further extension
In the spirit of the philosophy of Capacity Design, the designer decides the
locations where ductility is allowed to develop, and the magnitude of seismic induced
lateral force that the building must take. Under the designer's control, the building will
respond to the future seismic events in a mode planned by the designer. With this
approach, the maximum lateral load that the building can take is limited by design.
Although it is expected that seismic events larger than the MCE will produce larger
demands of ductility at the designated locations, and that the developed PH will have
enough ductility capacity. The last statement requires careful analysis, because it does not
A very important requisite for this approach to work is that all the remaining
elements of the building, which are not permitted to develop ductility, stay in the elastic
range. Park and Paulay (2006) present strong arguments to support the idea of not let the
columns in a framed building to develop ductility. They argue that column sidesway
plastic mechanisms (weak stories) must be avoided, and beam sidesway plastic
mechanisms enforced. Nowadays, there are widely recognized the limitations to develop
curvature ductility by the columns, and their reparation after the earthquake. Therefore,
or all beams. And the columns, to stay in the elastic range of strains. Design codes
(American Society of Civil Engineers, 2006) prescribe some minimum values of the ratio of
∑ Mp columns/ ∑ Mp beams for columns and beams interconnected at a frame node. The
intention of these rules is to avoid the possibility of the columns to reach their plastic
moment and, after that, the developing of ductility demands. Paulay (1992) evaluates
these code rules and gives arguments to support his conclusion about the limited
effectivity of these rules. He emphasizes that there are diverse situations where these
rules fail, and lead to designs where columns will have unexpected ductility demands.
In the section 4.2, the one-story PB is designed, and in section 4.3 the two story
PB. An alternative procedure is proposed in these sections to design the beams and
columns of these buildings. The intention of this procedure is to propose designs, which
can develop the SCWB plastic mechanism, before reaching the ultimate base shear force
of the building.
Designing 2 storey building 28
single story frame. As it is known, this shape is determined by the type of plastic
mechanism developed by the frame and by how much ductility capacity it has. The
overstrength factor, Ω0, and the deflection amplification factor, Cd, have a definitive
influence on the total ductility demand that potentially can be developed in the beam,
before reaching the plastic moment in the columns. If the beam can supply the demanded
curvature ductility, the frame withstands the MCE by developing a SCWB plastic
It is not the aim of this research to study buildings that comply strictly with any
design code, but to study prototype buildings whose behavior can be approximately
These four parameters define completely the backbone curve for the one story
mechanism when required by any extreme seismic event. The prototype frame is
calibrated to develop an arbitrary ultimate lateral load, and Fu is tied to the used Mpb (an
arbitrarily chosen value). The Fu value is adjusted in section 4.2, such that the prototype
building can take the actual maximum demand of lateral load, induced by the earthquake
data set. Herein is introduced an alternative method to evaluate the backbone curve,
including the values that define the kinks. This method is named the Hysteretic
Displacement Method (HDM). The HDM evaluates the relation between the applied
lateral displacement and the lateral load response. The intention of this procedure is to
identify the plastic mechanism developed by the frame. The HDM purpose is equivalent
to the purpose of the nonlinear static method of analysis, best known as the Pushover
fundamental difference between both methods is that the PM evaluates the nonlinear
response to a fixed pattern of lateral load, applied at the story level, and the HDM
important difference is that the HDM lets to evaluate the response for reversible cyclic
Equation 1
Where:
Designing 2 storey building 30
Figure 5 shows the displacement step history. The frame is under the action of a
forced roof lateral displacement of magnitude Ds. The total number of displacement
steps, required to complete a cycle, is selected to minimize the errors due to local changes
this is a large integer number. Though easy to handle by the computer. Using a trial and
error procedure, Dmax is increased up to the value where the frame reaches its ultimate
Step 2. The mathematical model is used herein to calculate the response of the
The rotation demand at ends of columns and beams is shown in figure 5. The
reported values are in radians. The histories of bending moments at these elements is
Designing 2 storey building 31
shown in figure 6. The reported values are normalized dividing them by their
corresponding plastic moment. It is evident that the beam starts to yield plastically under
smaller lateral displacement at the roof level. After the lateral displacement has reached a
larger magnitude, the lower end of the column starts yielding. In between these two
seismic event continues demanding ductility, eventually the columns yield and the frame
is described in the next section. The following plan dimensions are adopted:
For the purpose of this chapter, a doubly symmetric building is defined. The four
frames are identical, and based on a modified prototype frame. The K and factors are fu
The prototype frame is modified to obtain the target natural period, T = 0.22 sec.
The 1/2 factor is introduced to consider that the lateral stiffness is supplied by two
parallel frames in each orthogonal direction. The fu = 10000 is used to have a linear
elastic response for the set of seismic records used in this research. By trial and error, this
set of ten seismic events used for this research. The possibility that any of the seismic
events attack the building from random directions is considered. The evaluated incidence
angles (directions of attack) go from 0° to 180°, at each 15°, measured respect to the
positive X axis.
720.749kip, for each one of the four frames. With this result and the procedure prescribed
by the ASCE 7-05 code, the reduced inelastic base shear force is evaluated as:
Using these results, the fu factors are changed to the value: fu = 0.23777.
develop the SCWB plastic mechanism, for all the seismic events in the set and all the
On the other hand, the ductility demand for columns is about 1.2. The expectation
is that this value should be smaller than one, indicating no ductility demand in the
Designing 2 storey building 33
columns. These results indicate that the Q factor needs to be a little bit larger than Q0 = 3,
value specified by the code. Anyway, the ductility demand is just above the desired upper
limit (one). Another implication of these results is that for any future seismic event, that
could be larger than the ones used here, the building would respond with a weak column-
weak beam plastic mechanism for the peak demands of the unexpected event. And this is
against the original spirit of the Capacity Design philosophy. As stated by Park and
Paulay in their work. It is important to visualize that this observation emerges from the
analysis of the effect of a swept of seismic events and incidence angles. When only one
seismic event is considered, the observation could be different. The author is convinced
that conclusions base only on one seismic event are fundamentally wrong.
mechanisms.
column and beam properties at each story level. The other has columns and beams that
reduce their stiffness and strength with the story level. The building with variation of
properties is used to show what would happen to multistory buildings that have more than
As with the one story PB, most of the parameters that define a two story PB have
fixed values, to reduce the complexity of the parametric study. Buildings with two or
more story levels require the introduction of new parameters to define the way that the
column and beam properties change from one story level to the next level. It needs to be
Designing 2 storey building 34
defined also how the mass is distributed at each story level, and the properties that
characterizes it, like the location of the center of mass, rotational inertia, etc.
building. The upper modes natural periods are not designed, but implied in the other
parameter values adopted. The equation of the ASCE 7-05 code is used again to evaluate
a representative value. The story height used in the evaluation is 13.123/ft (4m), at the
two stories.
amplification factor, Cd
R=8
Ω0 = 3
Cd = 5.5
Designing 2 storey building 35
until the targeted first natural period was achieved. The ratio rbs controls the relation
between the beam and columns bending inertias, after fixing the ratio of beam to column
lengths.
The reason for this lack of exact analytical expressions is that there is neither a
unique pattern of lateral story forces nor displacements. These patterns, induced by the
seismic action, mainly depend on the earthquake frequency contents, the natural vibration
periods of the building, and the actual values of overstrength and deflection amplification
factors. This situation makes impossible to find the desired analytical expressions. The
approach taken to solve this problem is to use the HDM. The PM is another alternative.
During this procedure, the targeted natural period, the overstrength factor, and
the deflection amplification factor are compared with the actual values found with the
HDM. The procedure is repeated until values close enough to the targeted values are
found. The two steps procedure required to apply the HDM to the one story frame are
required here.
displacement steps.
Designing 2 storey building 36
The Dmax, Steps, and s variables are the same scalar parameters used in equation
7.2, is the modal shape of the first natural vibration mode of the frame, (pi is a three
response. The hysteretic behavior of the frame is shown in figure 7.6 for the frame with
constant column and beam properties at all story levels, and in figure 7.7 for the frame
Displacement First Story (in) Figure 7.6. Hysteresis loop of Constant Properties Frame
and observations from Appendix A, the following plan dimensions are adopted:
For the purpose of this chapter, doubly symmetric buildings are defined. The four
frames are identical, and based on a modified prototype frame. The K and fu factors are
used to modify the prototype frame. The frame locations and some factors applicable to
each frame are shown in Table 7.7 Considering that the prototype frame has the target
value of the first natural period, and the prototype building is made of two modified
parallel frames, these two frames must have one half of the prototype frame stiffness.
The maximum elastic demand, induced by the action of the set of seismic events
on each one of the four frames, is evaluated by time-history analysis. The values are
shown in Table 7.8. This maximum demand is taken from chapter 10, for the case of zero
eccentricity.
ductility demand on columns is 1.0. The maximum demand on beams is two to four
times the maximum demand for the case of a one story PB. On the other hand, the
maximum demand on columns for the first story is at the limit that separates the SCWB
and the weak column- weak beam plastic mechanisms. The remaining rotation capacity
in columns, before reaching their yield rotation, is significantly smaller for the varying
properties building than for the constant properties building. For any future seismic
event, that is larger than the ones used here, the building would respond with a weak
column-weak beam plastic mechanism for the peak demands of the unexpected event.
The same observation is made for one story buildings. In conclusion, the designed
prototype buildings satisfy the criteria of withstanding the set of seismic actions
Designing 2 storey building 38
developing SCWB plastic mechanisms. And for one story or three story buildings, the
CHAPTER 5
buildings are characterized by the parameters presented in chapters 3 and 4. The purpose
of this chapter is to do a parametric study to evaluate the effect on the torsional response
of the building of different values for some critical parameters. The same approach used
in chapter 9 for one story buildings is used herein. In general, the same criteria used in
that chapter are applied for the three story buildings. When a different consideration is
In the previous chapter, two cases are considered: all angles of incidence are equal
to zero (IA = 0°), and the evaluations are done using the specified set of twelve incidence
angles (I A = ALL). In this chapter, only the case with IA = ALL is evaluated.
Parameters Studied
he sources of eccentricity described in section 8 are evaluated in this parametric
study, i.e., the location of the CM, the location of the static Center of Rigidity, and the
respect to its parallel frame. The results of the parametric studies are presented only for
eccentricity in the Y direction is taken as zero. The static eccentricities on the X axis are
Designing 2 storey building 40
induced by distributing the mass such that its CM has different locations. The static
eccentricities used in this study are expressed as ratios of emx/b and the adopted values,
The buildings have two story levels and each one have the CM at a location that
can be different with respect to the other levels. The author considered convenient to
include the following three potential patterns of CM locations in the parametric study:
Pattern 1: All CM are located on the same side of the master node and at the
same distance.
Pattern 2: Three different cases are generated. The first case has the location of
the first story CM at the point defined by the Vi value, and the other story levels have
zero eccentricity. The second case has the eccentricity only in the second story level. And
the third case has the eccentricity only in the third story level.
Pattern 3: The location of the CM at each story level is alternated on the X axis.
The three patterns are postulated with the intention of studying more possible locations of
the CM and their impact on results. The maximum demands are calculated using the
algorithm presented in section 4.That algorithm is modified to include the evaluations for
the three patterns defined above. Two different prototype buildings are studied herein.
These prototypes are designed in section 7.3. One has the same column and beam
properties at each story level, and is called the case with Constant properties. Its results
are shown in figures 10.1 to 10.12. The other prototype building has columns and beams
that reduce their stiffness and strength with the story level, and is called the case with
All the figures use the same convention of symbols to identify the results
corresponding to each frame. The continuous lines with squares show results for frame 1,
dashed lines with squares for frame 2, continuous lines with circles for frame 3, and
dashed lines with circles for frame 4. This convention is used consistently through all the
graphs.
The type of plastic mechanism developed by the two different prototype buildings
columns. For the constant properties building, CP, and the varying properties building,
VP, only the first level columns reach their yield rotation. See figures 10.10 and 10.22.
This data is not enough to know if columns are yielding at both ends or only at one end.
Though, the second and third level columns do not yield, as seen in figures 10.11 and
10.12 for the CP building, and in figures 10.23 and 10.24 for the VP building. All the
beams yield at a certain point in time, as seen in figures 10.7 to 10.9 for the CP building,
and in figures 10.19 to 10.21 for the VP building. For multi story buildings, additional
Figures 10.4 and 10.16 demonstrate that frame 4 can develop larger demands of
normalized story shear force, for emx/b — 0.15. This can happen only if the frame has
not developed a column sway mechanism. Therefore, the CP and the VP building
research, to design the three story buildings, created designs that comply with the
postulated design goals of the philosophy of Capacity Design. From these results can be
inferred that the buildings have additional ductility capacity, though the margin cannot
be estimated. However, it can be stated that the used seismic performance factors are
Designing 2 storey building 42
satisfactory. The analysis of the results of each individual frame reveals that frame 4 has
the VP buildings, it can be observed that the CP building has smaller demands of rotation
ductility for the beams in the three levels. About 29.0 for the critical beam in the CP
(second level beam) versus about 45.0 for the critical beam in the VP (third level beam).
And the contrast is more noticeable when comparing maximum demands of rotation
ductility in columns. Thus, the CP building has a better behavior, in terms of the ductility
professional practice, it is to reduce sizes of columns in upper levels. From this point of
eccentricity on the Y direction is taken as zero, and the CM is at the master node. The
static eccentricities on the X axis are induced by changing the location of the frame
number 3, to force a change of the location of the static Center of Rigidity. The static
eccentricities are expressed as ratios of ex/b and the adopted values, V, are in the set:
V{ e {0, 0.05,0.10, 0.15,0.20, 0.25}. In this section, the parametric study is done only
for the VP building, and its results are shown in figures 10.25 to 10.36. The maximum
demands are calculated using the algorithm in section 9.2.1. The figures are organized in
a similar way as in section 10.2.1, and use the same symbol conventions. The type of
plastic mechanism developed by the building is identified using the same arguments used
for the mass eccentricity case. The conclusion is that the building develops a SCWB type
Designing 2 storey building 43
of plastic mechanism. Therefore, the design procedure used, works satisfactorily. For
one story buildings, frame 3 (closer to the CM) has the tendency to have the largest
maximum demands, but for the three story building, frame 1 and 2 tend to have the
maximum demands. This pattern of behavior could not be extrapolated from the one
and 4 reduce their contribution to the total instant Me//, and frames 1 and 2 increase their
contribution to balance the demand. The reduction of frame 3 and 4 would be due to a
response. The evaluated buildings are doubly symmetric in stiffness and mass, i.e., their
static center of rigidity and their mass center are located at the master node. The strength
original strength of beams and columns in the frame 3 only. The strength reductions are
are applied to frame 3 in three different ways, creating three different cases of buildings
to be evaluated: 1. Case 1. Original plastic moment, MP, of columns and beam in story
by Vi. The maximum demands are calculated using the algorithm in section 9.2.1, and
the results are shown in figures 10.37 to 10.72, for the three cases described above.
Reviewing the results of the three postulated cases, it is evident that an increase of both
beam and column rotation ductility is concentrated at the respective story level, e.g., at
Designing 2 storey building 44
level 1, for case 1, the increment of maximum demand on the beam is 110% and on the
column is 260%. For a Vi = 1.0 (without strength reduction), the building is identical to
the building studied in the mass eccentricity case for emx/b = 0. Thus, a SCWB plastic
mechanism is developed by the building. The results shown in the figures, do not include
enough information to prove that a SCWB is developed for the other V{ values.
However, due to the concentration of ductility demand on the frame elements located at
one level, the conditions are set to develop a column sway mechanism at that level. It is
necessary to study this possibility with more detail in future investigations. Another
pattern of behavior is that frame 3 is the most demanded frame and its parallel frame
tends to increment its response. Though, at a much smaller ratio. And the frames 1 and 2
Conclusions
The main purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the effect of some parameters on
the torsional response of three story buildings. These parameters are the static Center of
Rigidity, the location of the Center of Mass, and the magnitude of the strength-
asymmetry in parallel frames. The effect is evaluated through a parametric study, which
The following list summarizes the main findings from the analysis of the results
1. Two types of building were studied herein. A building with constant properties
(CP) and a building with varying properties (VP). These buildings were designed
using the code-prescribed seismic performance factors. The R, the Q,0, and the d
factors. For the cases of mass and stiffness eccentricity, these buildings were able
Designing 2 storey building 45
capacity to resist unexpected seismic events, larger than the MCE, is expected.
Though, it cannot be quantified with the available information from this research.
2. The CP building kept the maximum demands of ductility at smaller levels than
when designing new buildings. Despite that more VP buildings are built than CP
buildings.
3. When the effect of accidental variations of strength on the torsional response are
considered these variations in one story of a frame at a time. For the largest
CHAPTER
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Research Summary
During large seismic events, a significant number of buildings have suffered from severe
damage to complete collapse. Some researchers have found that a significant percentage
of these buildings had excessive torsional response. Many of these damaged buildings
were built before the development of the modern practice of earthquake engineering.
Thus, the design limitations of some decades ago were the source of most of these
problematic structures.
Nowadays, the knowledge of torsional behavior has evolved notably, but it still needs
improvement. There are several aspects of this behavior that are not well known.
Although, many researchers have worked on this topic for long time, more research needs
to be done for multi story buildings, especially when they develop a non linear behavior.
The main intention of this research is to study the torsional response of simplified framed
phenomenon. In the pursue of this goal, this research was done. The present study
buildings
Conclusions
The main conclusions of the research presented herein are:
1. A building with static eccentricity only on the X axis, shows instant eccentricity
direction
2. The instant eccentricity can have a magnitude quite different with respect to the
static eccentricities
pass through the location of the mass center during some instants, but most of the
time it moves to other locations. However, there is a tendency to align itself with
torsional moment, and it is unconservative in some of the studied cases. Thus, the
building, can induce relatively large torsional responses. The nominal torsional
6. The strength eccentricity has the potential to render a carefully designed building
7. For the cases in the parametric study, it was found that ignoring the possibility of
for analysis
8. Seismic performance factors play a central role in the control of the plastic
1. The possibility of having different incidence angles, other than on the orthogonal
purposes, the author believes that it is a must. For practical applications to the
engineering office, a procedure that includes analysis with IA=0 and IA=90, plus
2. The author found that the seismic performance factors are not well understood by
are engineers and researchers that understand very clearly these factors and their
implications for the dynamic behavior of a building. But, these factors and the
Designing 2 storey building 49
The teaching of these topics in a prescriptive style limit the future engineers of a
buildings in seismic zones. Therefore, work need in this area on how to teach
the accidental eccentricity prescribed by the codes already includes these effects.
Intriguingly, the USA and the Mexican design codes use different values of
strength are minimized, with respect to other countries, or may be this issue is not
be developed
4. The mathematical model prepared for this research included the possibility of
local plasticization of the beams and columns. To simplify the model, the plastic
hinge concept was adopted. Future work need to implement different methods to
consider the non linear behavior of the building. The use of the plastic hinge,
presented here. Thus, the work done in this research should be expanded to
5. In the few last years, the computer hardware capabilities has improved at a much
faster pace than structural engineers have improved their computer algorithms
Designing 2 storey building 50
Engineers have to move faster to be able to use all the computer power available
today (year 2009), developing more ambitious algorithms to solve the most
demanding problems they face. In this way, approaches of solution that seemed
impossible some years ago, today they have become possible. The current trend to
misuses all the available computer power. The capacities of the structural
analysis software available in the market, has been dictated more by the
particular needs of the companies that develop this software, than by the
engineers have become mostly users of black boxes. Hopefully, everything done
taught the author that there is a big difference between knowing concepts and
mastering them. Thus, engineers need to take the control of the development of
the future software tools. Initiatives like the one implemented by the University of
California at Berkeley seem to be in the right direction. Their Open System for
design of concrete buildings. These implications are oriented toward designing the two-
storey building with the best hydraulic performance as measured by exhibiting the lowest
seepage rate of water through the concrete vault floor. Decreased seepage leads to lower
Designing 2 storey building 51
releases from the disposal and consequently a lower risk of exposure to humans. The
results indicate roof slope is not an important design consideration; however scale effects
containment.” In this configuration, the outer vault would be similar to a large storage
area that would be filled with containers holding the waste. A larger-scale concrete vault
having a clay outer cover layer (minimally) could be utilized as the outer containment.
The outer containment would initially reduce the flow of water through the vault.
However, as discussed previously, the outer layer would degrade. Water passing through
this degraded outer concrete vault would be conditioned (e.g., the pH would increase),
thus protecting the inner containment that holds the waste from concrete degradation.
Furthermore, as indicated by the results presented in this paper, the smaller scale inner
containment would better divert flow towards the side of that inner containment.
are designed for placement near the ground surface and away from the below ground
concrete vault (DOE 2000). Because of the location, these ground surface covers are
susceptible to failure from activities related to plant growth, animals, and humans. Failure
at the ground surface could redirect infiltration toward the below ground concrete vault. It
is recommended that the cover by moved away from the surface and instead be placed
adjacent to the concrete vault. The simulations results show the positive effects on
hydraulic performance of using clay as a cover layer for the concrete vault and the
negative effects on hydraulic performance of using loam and sand (i.e., backfill) as a
There is a significant scale effect for both degraded and intact concrete at lower
infiltration rates. At higher infiltration rates water is perched on the vault roof and vault
half-width does not affect the seepage rate. The magnitude of the scale effect increases
with decreasing infiltration rate. The scale effect is greater for intact concrete than for
degraded concrete, because there is greater variability in seepage rates over the range of
vault half-widths with intact concrete than with degraded concrete. These results suggest
that although present for both degraded and intact concrete, the scale effect is greater
For both intact and degraded concrete, perched water exists on the vault roof at higher
infiltration rates and is evident when the seepage rate reaches a maximum value as
infiltration increases. Therefore, once there is perched water, water is diverted around the
vault and the vault hydraulic performance is unchanged even though infiltration
increases. Water perches for intact concrete at lower infiltration rates than for degraded
concrete. Additionally, intact concrete vault has a higher saturation than the degraded
concrete vault. Paradoxically, the low permeability of intact concrete and good hydraulic
• Clay layers placed adjacent to the concrete were found to lower water flow
• Smaller vault sizes result in lower flow rates and indicate a scale effect.
Although not evaluated in this work, the simulation results suggest that a “double
enhanced hydraulic performance over a single concrete vault. The outer vault would
initially provide a low permeability barrier to flow. Once the outer vault degrades, the
water passing inside of the outer vault would be conditioned and then contact a smaller-
scale concrete vault. As indicated in the results from this paper for scale effects, the
smaller vault would have more of a capability to divert flow towards the sides of the
There is a significant scale effect for both degraded and intact concrete at lower
infiltration rates. At higher infiltration rates water is perched on the vault roof and vault
half-width does not affect the seepage rate. The magnitude of the scale effect increases
with decreasing infiltration rate. The scale effect is greater for intact concrete than for
degraded concrete, because there is greater variability in seepage rates over the range of
vault half-widths with intact concrete than with degraded concrete. These results suggest
that although present for both degraded and intact concrete, the scale effect is greater
For both intact and degraded concrete, perched water exists on the vault roof at higher
infiltration rates and is evident when the seepage rate reaches a maximum value as
infiltration increases. Therefore, once there is perched water, water is diverted around the
vault and the vault hydraulic performance is unchanged even though infiltration
increases. Water perches for intact concrete at lower infiltration rates than for degraded
concrete. Additionally, intact concrete vault has a higher saturation than the degraded
Designing 2 storey building 54
concrete vault. Paradoxically, the low permeability of intact concrete and good hydraulic
• Clay layers placed adjacent to the concrete were found to lower water flow
• Smaller vault sizes result in lower flow rates and indicate a scale effect.
Although not evaluated in this work, the simulation results suggest that a “double
enhanced hydraulic performance over a single concrete vault. The outer vault would
initially provide a low permeability barrier to flow. Once the outer vault degrades, the
water passing inside of the outer vault would be conditioned and then contact a smaller-
scale concrete vault. As indicated in the results from this paper for scale effects, the
smaller vault would have more of a capability to divert flow towards the sides of the
References
Ahmed, S. ‘‘Analysis of Fluid Flow Through Intact and Degraded Below Ground
Vaults,’’ Master of Science Project, University of Texas at El Paso, 1995.
Jury, W.A., Gardner, W.R., and Gardner, W.H., “Soil Physics,” John Wiley and Sons,
New York, 1991.
Kacimov, A. R. and Y. V. Obnosov, “Steady Water Flow Around Parabolic Cavities and
Through Parabolic Inclusions in Unsaturated and Saturated Soils”, Journal of
Hydrology, Vol. 238 p. 65-77, 2000.
Shahjahan, A.S. ‘‘Flow Through Degraded Below Ground Concrete Vault,’’ Master of
Science Project, University of Texas at El Paso, 1995.
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and of Cement-Stabilized Wastes with Different Waste Loading for Long Term
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Concrete Barriers in Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal,’’ NUREG/CR-
5542, 1990.
Designing 2 storey building 56
Warrick, A. W., Wierenga, P. J., and L. Pan, “Downward Water Flow Through Sloping
Layers in the Vadose Zone: Analytical Solutions for Diversions”, Journal of
Hydrology, Vol. 192 p. 321-337, 1997.
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Designing 2 storey building 57
Appendix A Figures
Figure 6: Discretized grid of the model domain showing the nominal concrete vault
with a half-width of 1,000 cm (10 m).
Designing 2 storey building 58