International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 10 Number 12 - Apr 2014

Seismic Response of RC Building with Soft Stories

1
Hiten L. Kheni, 2Anuj K. Chandiwala
1
Asst. Prof., Civil Engineering Department, GTU, PSE, Sanki, Kadodara, Surat, Gujarat, India
2
Asst. Prof., Civil Engineering Department, UTU, CGPIT, Bardoli, Surat, Gujarat, India

Abstract After 26th January 2001, Gujarat Earthquake an d

o t he r e a rt hqua ke s in I nd ia , there is a nation-wide II. SOFT STOREY
attention to the seismic vulnerability assessment of existing The building in which the ground storey consists of open
buildings. The fundamental design concept of earthquake
space for parking area is known as stilt building and the
resistance design of structures is to make strong column- weak
beam construction to ensure safety of user means during
parking storey is called as stilt Floor or Soft-Storey. When
earthquake beams yield before columns collapse.[2] Many sudden change of stiffness takes place along the building
buildings that collapsed during the past earthquake exhibited height, the storey of which the drastic reduction of stiffness is
exactly the opposite strong beam weak column behaviour means observed is known as soft storey.
columns failed before the beams yielded mainly due to soft storey A Soft story building is a multi-story building with wide
effect. The buildings with soft storey are very susceptible under doors, large unobstructed commercial spaces, or the ground
earthquake load which create disasters. For proper assessment of storey is left open for the purpose of parking , i.e., columns in
the storey stiffness of buildings with soft storey, different models the ground storey do not have any partition walls (of either
were analysed using software.
masonry or RC) between them.[3]
As per IS-1893:2002 (part I) [6]
Keywords Seismic Analysis, Soft First Storey, Inter Storey An Soft Storey is one in which the lateral stiffness is less
Drift
than 70 percent of that in the storey above or less than 80
I. INTRODUCTION percent of the average lateral stiffness of the three storeys
above.
Stability of earth is always disturbed due to internal forces Extreme Soft Storey
and as a result of such disturbance, vibrations or jerks in An extreme soft storey is one in which the lateral stiffness
earth's crust takes place, which is known as an is less than 60 percent of that in the storey above or less than
earthquake. The fundamental design concept of earthquake 70 percent of the average stiffness of the three storeys above.
resistance design of structures is to make strong column- weak
beam construction to ensure safety of user means during
earthquake beams yield before columns collapse. Many III. TYPES OF FAILURE
buildings that collapsed during the past earthquake exhibited There are four major failure types for building structures.
exactly the opposite strong beam weak column behaviour
Soft Storey Failure
means columns failed before the beams yielded mainly due to
Mass Irregularity failure
soft storey effect.
Plan Irregularity Failure
A simple understanding of soft storey is sudden change of
Shear Failure
lateral storey stiffness within the structure. An irregularity in
vertical configuration tends to create sudden changes in A. Soft Storey Failure
strength or stiffness that may concentrate earthquake forces or Due to the shortage of land and for effective use of the sites
other forces in an undesirable way. for new constructions, multi-purpose buildings have been built.
These can be very difficult to deal with even in a modern The most common structural system for the lower stories of
structure although the size of the overall force that building these buildings has been the moment-resisting space frame
must withstand is determined by the Newton's second law of because it can usually accommodate a parking area,
motion, the way in which this is distributed and concentrated, commercial space, gardens, or open spaces for architectural
is determined by the configuration of building in horizontal reasons. Due to these provisions, the lateral displacement of
and vertical direction. the whole structure is governed mostly by the deformation at
the lower stories. Therefore, it is essential to estimate the
The overall forces are concentrated at one or few points of demand and supply in the force and deformation of the
the buildings such as a particular set of beams, columns, or members at this part of the building to achieve a reasonable
walls. These few members may fail and, by chain reaction, design of these structures.[3,4]
bring down the whole building. The most serious condition of Figure 1 shows that if once the ground floor columns failed,
vertical irregularity is that of the soft storey. the gravity load carrying capacity of the building was partially
or completely lost, resulting in partial or fully collapse of the
Such design creates a major stress concentration at that structures. Same figure shows that Collapse of apartment
location of discontinuity of lateral storey stiffness and, in building due to open ground storey failure. No structural
extreme circumstance may lead to collapse unless adequate damage is observed in the upper stories.
design is provided at such locations. The SOFT STOREY at the parking level is the major
reason for such types of failure.

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 International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 10 Number 12 - Apr 2014
IV. PARAMETRIC STUDY
Considering material non-linearity and height variation at
soft first storey, following parametric study is performed to
study inter drift relationship at soft storey.
General data considered is:
Height of ground storey 3.2m, 4.2m and 6.0m
Numbers of bays 5 @ 4.5m both way
Height of other storey 3.2m (constant for all models)
Column size 600mm*600mm (Footing),
500mm*500mm (up to 3 stories), 450mm*450mm
(others)
Beam size 300mm*600mm
Slab thickness 125mm thick
Figure 1 Collapse of Multi-Storey Building Due To Soft Storey Wall thickness 23033 thick

B. Mass Irregularity Failure

Most multi-storey buildings have service water tanks on top
of them. Usually, these tanks are only nominally connected to
the building. Many such tanks have been separated from the
building during this earthquake.
C. Plan Irregularity Failure
Due to irregular shape (T-shape, C-shape, L-shape etc.) of
the building, torsional motions contributed to the damage. [EQ
TIPS 6] Most of the damage was to walls of the structures on
the outer face of the side that are basement storey for parking.
Plan asymmetry, flexible ground storey, and weak infills
seem responsible for this collapse. Building structure with
plan irregularity was collapsed due to improper connection at Figure 3 Plan of the Model Consider for the Study
two wings as shown in figure 2.
Live load 4 KN/m2 at typical and 1.5 KN/m2 at terrace
floor
Floor finish 1.0 KN/m2
Water proofing 2.0 KN/m2
Zone of building- Surat (III)
Wind load as per IS 875
Earthquake load as per IS 13920
Type of soil Medium
Average thickness of footing 900mm (assuming
isolated footings)
Grade of steel and concrete- Fe 415 and M25
respectively

Figure 2 L-Shaped Plan of Commercial Building with Collapse Part

D. Shear Failure
Detailing practice for transverse ties in columns in the
affected area offers very light confinement to the core
concrete against the large compressive stress generated by the
extreme lateral deformation demands during strong seismic
shaking. Many times, the mild steel ties were found to be 5
mm in diameter. Ground floor columns with such
reinforcement detailing failed in brittle shear mode leading to
failure of many open ground storey buildings, in some
buildings, only a few ground storey columns sustained
significant shear and flexural cracking, and these buildings
were precariously standing.
Figure 4 Sectional Elevation of Different Models Consider for the Study

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 International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 10 Number 12 - Apr 2014
of seismic zones have been studied and comparisons are also
made.

FIG A
HL3.2:6 HL4.2:6 HL6.0:6

25
20
15
10
5
0

1ST FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

4TH FLOOR

5TH FLOOR
GL

ROOF
2ND

3RD
FIG B

Figure 5 3-D View of Model HL3.2:6 HL3.2:6 HL4.2:6 HL6.0:6

In order to examine the soft storey behaviour of the 30

building structures, several two-dimensional analytical models 20
are considered in this study. During the development of the 10
analytical models, several issues are taken into consideration.
An important topic at this stage is to evaluate easily the 0

GL

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

ROOF
2ND

3RD

4TH

5TH
1ST
existence of the soft story behaviour in the structure. For this -10
reason, two dimensional frame models for which the soft story -20
behaviour can easily be accepted are selected for investigation. -30
Each model in this study is named according to the total
number of stories and first story height of it. For example
model name HL3.2:6 indicate six storey models with 3.2m
heighted soft storey at ground level. The expression HL FIG C
used for the height of the lower or first story, after that two
digits (as 3.2) indicate height taken in related model as 3.2m HL3.2:6 HL4.2:6 HL6.0:6
and the digit after colon : indicates the numbers of stories
taken in related model as 6 storey. All these analytical models 30
are analysed according to the requirement of Indian Standard 20
Codes. 10
0
GL

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

ROOF
2ND

3RD

4TH

5TH
-10
1ST

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Main objective of this exercise to find out inter story drift -20
for soft storey by considering stiff column and height variable -30
of soft first storey at first storey level. First the different
models are analysed separately and then it compared with FIG D
other models results. For comparative purpose inter storey
drift for different models with different frequencies are HL3.2:6 HL4.2:6 HL6.0:6
considered.
Using the analytical procedure, typical soft storied infilled 30
frame with variable first soft storey is analysed using the 20
software MIDAS GEN (validated before study) considering 10
all the parameters stated above. The results are compared with 0
GL

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

ROOF
2ND

3RD

4TH

5TH

-10
1ST

different models with different mode shapes and charts were

prepared for comparison between different heighted storeys. -20
Lateral deformation or inter storey drift is one of the most -30
important result in the design and analysis of a building.
Therefore lateral deformations due to equivalent lateral loads Figure 6 Storey Drift vs Floor Level for Six Storied Building for (A) Mode I,
(B) Mode IV, (C) Mode VII and (D) Mode X

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 International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 10 Number 12 - Apr 2014

FIG A
VI. CONCLUSIONS
HL3.2:8 HL4.2:8 HL6.0:8 In view of the results obtained by the seismic analysis of
the considered building structures, following primary
20 conclusions on the observations of behaviour of the models
15 are obtained:
The displacement estimates of the codal lateral load
10 patterns are observed to be smaller for the lower stories
5 and larger for the upper stories and are independent of
the total number stories of the models.
0
The uniform lateral load pattern leads to
G. L.

ROOF
FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR
2ND

4TH

6TH
overestimations of displacements for all of the models
and deformation levels.
The estimations of the first mode lateral load pattern
FIG B leads to more accurate displacement, the deviations on
the results of this lateral load pattern decreases due to
HL3.2:8 HL4.2:8 HL6.0:8 the existence of the soft stories as the number of stories
and number of spans increase.
30
20
REFERENCES
10
[1] Wakchaure MR, Ped SP. Earthquake Analysis of High Rise Building
0 with and Without Infilled Walls. International Journal of Engineering
G. L.

ROOF
FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

and Innovative Technology. 2012; volume 2; 89-94.

2ND

3RD

4TH

5TH

6TH

7TH
1ST

-10 [2] Lamb PB, Londhe RS. Seismic Behavior of Soft First Storey. IOSR
Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering. 2012; Volume 4; 28-33.
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IIT Kanpur. Seismic Response of R.C. Framed Buildings with Soft First
Stories. Proceedings of the CBRI Golden Jubilee Conference on
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[4] Mehmet I, Hayri BO. Effect of Infilled Walls on Soft Storey Behaviour
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30 [6] IS 1893 (Part I): 2002, 6th Edition, Criteria for Earthquake Resistant
20 Design of Structures; Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi, India
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10 Structures; Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi, India
[8] IS 13920: 1993, Ductile Detailing of Reinforced Concrete Structures
0 Subjected to Seismic Forces; Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi,
G. L.

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

ROOF
2ND

3RD

4TH

5TH

6TH

7TH
1ST

India
-10 [9] Satish SR, Srinivasan JL. Performance Based Design of R.C. Open
-20 Ground Storey Buildings. 2012; 15TH WCEE.
[10] Prakashvel J, UmaRani C, Muthumani K, Gopalakrishnan N.
Earthquake Response of Reinforced Concrete Frame with Open
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FIG D
Engineering and Management Science. 2012; Volume 2; 91-101.
[11] Indumathy V, Annapurna BP. Non Linear Analysis of Multi-storeyed
HL3.2:8 HL4.2:8 HL6.0:8 Infilled Frame with Soft Storey and with Window Openings of Different
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30 [12] Dande PS, Kodag PB. Influence of Provision of Soft Storey in RC Frame
Building for Earthquake Resistance Design. International Journal of
20 Engineering Research and Applications. 2013; Volume 3; 461-468

10
0
G. L.

ROOF
FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR

FLOOR
2ND

3RD

4TH

5TH

6TH

7TH
1ST

-10
-20

Figure 7 Storey Drift vs Floor Level for Eight Storied Building for (A) Mode-
I, (B) Mode IV, (C) Mode VII and (D) Mode X

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