Influence of a Soft Story on the Seismic Response of Non-Structural Components

Vyshnavi Pesaralanka, S. P. Challagulla (), Felipe Vicencio, P. Suresh Chandra Babu, Ismail Hossain, Mohammed Jameel and Uppari Ramakrishna
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Vyshnavi Pesaralanka: Department of Civil Engineering, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vaddeswaram, Guntur 522302, Andhra Pradesh, India
S. P. Challagulla: Department of Civil Engineering, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vaddeswaram, Guntur 522302, Andhra Pradesh, India
Felipe Vicencio: Facultad de Ingenieria, Arquitectura y Diseño, Universidad San Sebastian, Santiago 8420524, Chile
P. Suresh Chandra Babu: Department of Civil Engineering, Malla Reddy Engineering College, Maisammaguda, Hyderabad 500100, Telangana, India
Ismail Hossain: School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Ural Federal University, 620000 Yekaterinburg, Russia
Mohammed Jameel: Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, King Khalid University, Asir, Abha 61421, Saudi Arabia
Uppari Ramakrishna: Department of Civil Engineering, Vignana Bharathi Institute of Technology, Hyderabad 501301, Telangana, India

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-27

Abstract: Multi-story, reinforced-concrete (RC) building structures with soft stories are highly vulnerable to damage due to earthquake loads. The soft story causes a significant stiffness irregularity, which has led to numerous buildings collapsing in previous seismic events. In addition to the structural collapse, the failure of non-structural components (NSCs) has also been observed during past earthquakes. In light of this, this study investigates the effect of a soft story and its location on the seismic behavior of a supporting building and NSCs. The soft story is assumed to be located on the bottom (ground), middle, and top-story levels of the considered building models. Story displacements and inter-story drift ratios are evaluated to assess structural behavior. The floor response spectra and the amplification effects of NSC on the floor acceleration responses are studied to understand the behavior of NSCs. The analysis results revealed that the bottom soft story exhibits a considerable vertical stiffness irregularity, and its position substantially affects the floor response spectra. The amplification in the floor acceleration response was found to be greater at the soft-story level. This study reported that middle soft-story buildings exhibit the most remarkable amplification in the component’s acceleration. Finally, peak floor response demands are compared with the code-based formulation, and it is found that the code-based formulation’s linear assumption may lead peak floor response demands to be underestimated or overestimated.

Keywords: floor amplification factor; non-structural component; soft story; inter-story drift ratio; story displacement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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