STRUCTURES UNDER LATERAL LOADS

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 INTRODUCTION
• Indian buildings built over past two decades are
seismically deficient because of lack of
awareness regarding seismic resisting measures .
• Also seismic design is not normally practiced in
most of the buildings being built in India.
Therefore, seismic vulnerability estimation is
pre-requisite for disaster mitigation management.
• The difficulties faced in seismic vulnerability
estimation of a building are there is no reliable
information/database available for existing
building stock, construction practices, in-situ
strength of material and components of the
building
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• The aim of evaluation is to assess the seismic
capacity of earth quake vulnerable buildings or
earthquake damaged buildings for the future use.
• The evaluation may also prove helpful for degree
of intervention required in seismically deficient
structures
• The methodologies available so far for the
evaluation of existing buildings can be broadly
divided into two categories
– qualitative methods
– analytical methods

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 I. Qualitative methods
Qualitative methods are based on the background
information available like architectural & structural dwg.
Condition Assessment
• means the collection of information about the structure
and its past performance characteristics to similar type of
structure during past earthquake
Data collection
• Collection of data is an important portion for the seismic
evaluation of any existing building. The information
required for the evaluated building can be divided as
follows.

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Building data
• Architectural, structural and construction drawings
• Vulnerability parameters:
no. of stories, year of construction and total floor area
• Seismicity of the site.
Construction data
• Identification of gravity load resisting system
• Identification of lateral load resisting system
• Maintenance, addition, alteration, or modification in
structure
• Field surveys of the structures existing condition

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Structural data
• Structural concept: vertical and horizontal irregularities,
torsional eccentricity, pounding, short column and others
• Detailing concept: ductile detailing, special confinement
reinforcement
• Pounding- column distress, possibly local collapse
• Unsymmetrical buildings (U,T,L,V) in plan- torsional
effects and concentration of damage at the re entrant
corners
• Unsymmetrical buildings in elevation- abrupt change in
lateral resistance
• Vertical strength discontinuities
• Short columns
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• Large tie spacing in columns lack of confinement of core –
shear failures.
• Insufficient column lengths – concrete to spall.
• Locations of inadequate splices- brittle shear failure
• Insufficient column strength for full moment hinge
capacity – brittle shear failure.
• Lack of continuous beam reinforcement- hinge formation
during load reversals.
• Inadequate reinforcing of beam column joints or location
of beam bar splices at columns joint failures.
• Improper bent up of longitudinal reinforcing in beams as
shear reinforcement – shear failure during load reversal
• Foundation dowels that are insufficient to develop the
capacity of the column steel above local column distress.
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Seismic evaluation data
• The criteria of evaluation of building will depend on
materials, strength and ductility of structural components
and detailing of reinforcement.
• Materials evaluation
• Structural detailing
– Flexural members, columns, foundations
• Limitation of sections
• Limitation of min. & max. flexural reinforcement
• Restriction of splices
• Development length requirements
• Shear reinforcement requirement
• Special confining requirements
• Column steel dowelled into the foundation 8
Field evaluation /Visual inspection method
• This is very quick way of assessing the building
vulnerability based on visual screening
• Visual inspection is the most widely used form of
non destructive evaluation.
• This methodology is referred to as a “sidewalk
survey” in which an experienced screener visually
examines a building to identify features that affect
the seismic performance of the building, such as
the building type, seismicity, soil conditions and
irregularities
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 The procedure for visual inspection are described
in the following steps
• Perform a walk through visual inspection to
become familiar with the structure
• Gather background documents and information on
the design , construction, maintenance, and
operation of the structure

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• Identify the location of vertical structural elements – columns or
walls
• Sketch the elevation with sufficient details – dimensions, openings,
observed damage such as cracks, spalling, and exposed reinforcing
bar, width of cracks
• After performing a detailed visual inspection, the investigator must
be able to distinguish between recent damage and pre existing
damage , ensuring that the observed damage may or may noit prove
to be dangerous for the structure.

Limitations of Visual inspection method

• Applicable for surface damage that can be visualized

• No identification of inner damage- health monitoring of building,
change of frequency and mode shapes

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 Non destructive testing

• Visual inspection has the obvious limitation that

only visible surface can be inspected.: internal
defects go unnoticed. So a visual inspection is
usually supplemented by NDT methods
• Some of the non destructive testing methods for
condition assessment of structures are described
below.

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• Rebound hammer test
It is the most widely used non destructive device
for quick surveys to assess the quality of concrete.
• Penetration resistance method
This method is used to determine the quality and
compressive strength of in-situ concrete based on
the determination of the depth of penetration of
probes into the concrete.
• Rebar locator
It is used to determine quality, location, size and
condition of reinforcing steel in concrete

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• Ultrasonic pulse velocity
It is used for determining the elastic constants
(modulus of elasticity and Poissons ratio) and the
density by conducting tests at various points on the
structure.
• Impact echo
Impact echo is a method for detecting
discontinuities within the thickness of a wall.
• Penetrating radar
It is used to detect the location of reinforcing bars,
cracks, voids and other material discontinuities,
verify thickness of concrete.
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 II Analytical methods
Capacity/demand (C/D) method

• The forces and displacements resulting from an elastic

analysis for design earth quake are called demand.
• These are compared with the capacity of different
members to resist these forces and displacements.
• A (C/D) ratio less than one indicates member failure and
thus needs retrofitting.
The main difficulty in using this method is that there is no
relationship between member and structure ductility factor
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 Push over analysis
• The push over analysis of a static non linear
analysis under permanent vertical loads and
gradually increasing lateral loads.
• The equivalent static lateral loads approximately
represent earth quake induced forces.
• A plot of total base shear verses top displacement
in a structure is obtained by the analysis that would
indicate any premature failure.
• The analysis is carried out upto failure, thus it
enables determination of collapse load and
ductility capacity.
• This type of analysis enables weakness in the16
structure to be identified.
 Inelastic time-history analysis
• A seismically deficient building will be subjected to
inelastic action during design earthquake motion.
• The inelastic time history analysis of the building under
strong ground motion brings out the regions of weakness
and ductility demand in the structure.
• This is the most rational method available for assessing
building performance.
• There are computer programs available to perform this
type of analysis.
• This methodology is used to ascertain deficiency and post
elastic response under strong ground shaking.

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 Seismic evaluation of RCC columns

Possible damages which are frequently observed

after the earth quakes are mainly due to
• lack of confinement,
• large tie spacing,
• insufficient splices length,
• inadequate splicing at the same section ,
• hook configurations,
• poor concrete quality etc.

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 Seismic evaluation of RCC beams

• There is little evidence that the buildings have

collapsed due to beam failure.
Reasons for the possible damages are due to
• lack of longitudinal compressive reinforcement,
• infrequent transverse reinforcement,
• bad anchorage of the bottom reinforcement into the
support,
• bottom steel termination at face of column.
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 Seismic evaluation of RC beam column joints

• Beam column joints are critical element in frame

structures and are subjected to high shear and bond
slip deformations under earthquake loading
Common causes of failure of beam column joints
are due to
• inadequate reinforcement in beam column joint,
• absence of confinement reinforcement,
• inappropriate location of bar splices in column etc.
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 Seismic evaluation of RC slabs

• Generally slab on beams performed well during

earth quakes and are not dangerous but cracks in
slab creates serious aesthetics and functional
problems
Damage to slab often occurs due to
• irregularities such as large openings at
concentration of earth quake forces,
• close to widely spaced shear walls.
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 SUMMARY

• There are many buildings that have primary

structural system, which do not meet the current
seismic requirements and suffer extensive damage
during the earthquake.
• The methodology can be implemented to estimate
seismic vulnerability of different types of existing
building stock in Indian Cities and further extended
to investigate the impact of mitigation measures on
the consequences of an earthquake.

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