International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562 Vol.7 No.

11 (2012)
Research India Publications; http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer.htm


Seismic Response of R.C.C Building with Soft Storey


Dr. Saraswati Setia and Vineet Sharma

Associate Professor, Civil Engineering Department NIT, Kurukshetra kurukshetra, India
e-mail: ss_s97@rediffmail.com
Lecturer, Civil Engineering Department. G.P. Nilokheri Haryana, India
e-mail: sha.vineet.s@gmail.com


Abstract
With urbanization and increasing unbalance of required space
to availability, it is becoming imperative to provide open
ground storey in commercial and residential buildings. These
provisions reduce the stiffness of the lateral load resisting
system and a progressive collapse becomes unavoidable in a
severe earthquake for such buildings due to soft storey. Soft
storey behavior exhibit higher stresses at the columns and the
columns fail as the plastic hinges are not formed on
predetermined positions. Thus, the vulnerability of soft storey
effect has caused structural engineers to rethink the design of a
soft storey building in areas of high seismicity. The present
analytical study investigates the influence of some parameters
on behavior of a building with soft storey. The modeling of
the whole building is carried out using the computer program
STAAD.Pro 2006. Parametric studies on displacement, inter
storey drift and storey shear have been carried out using
equivalent static analysis to investigate the influence of these
parameter on the behavior of buildings with soft storey. The
selected building analyzed through five numerical models.

Keywords Multistory building, Seismic Analysis storey
drift, storey shear, soft storey.


INTRODUCTION
Reinforced-concrete framed structure in recent time has a
special feature i.e. the ground storey is left open for the
purpose of parking etc. Such building are often called open
ground storey buildings or building on stilts. Open ground
storey system is being adopted in many buildings presently
due to the advantage of open space to meet the economical
and architectural demands. But these stilt floor used in most
severely damaged or, collapsed R.C. buildings, introduced
severe irregularity of sudden change of stiffness between the
ground storey and upper stories since they had had infilled
bricks walls which increase the lateral stiffness of the frame
by a factor of three to four times. In such buildings the
dynamic ductility demand during probable earthquake gets
concentrated in the soft storey and the upper storey tends to
remain elastic. Hence the building is totally collapsed due to
soft storey effect.

Fig.1 Collapse of a building with soft storey Modica town, in
Southern Italy [1]


SOFT STOREY BEHAVIOR
Many building structure having parking or commercial areas
in their first stories, suffered major structural damages and
collapsed in the recent earthquakes. Large open areas with less
infill and exterior walls and higher floor levels at the ground
level result in soft stories and hence damage. In such
buildings, the stiffness of the lateral load resisting systems at
those stories is quite less than the stories above or below. In
Fig.2, the lateral displacement diagram of a building with a
soft storey under lateral loading is shown.

International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562 Vol.7 No.11 (2012)
Research India Publications; http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer.htm



Fig.2 Soft storey behavior of a building structure under lateral
loading [2]

During an earthquake, if abnormal inter-story drifts
between adjacent stories occur, the lateral forces cannot be
well distributed along the height of the structure. This
situation causes the lateral forces to concentrate on the storey
(or stories) having large displacement(s). In addition, if the
local ductility demands are not met in the design of such a
building structure for that storey and the inter-storey drifts are
not limited, a local failure mechanism or, even worse, a storey
failure mechanism, which may lead to the collapse of the
system, may be formed due to the high level of load
deformation (P-) effects. Fig.3 displays the collapse
mechanism of such a building structure with a soft storey
under both earthquake and gravity loads.


Fig.3 Collapse mechanism of a building structure having a soft
storey [2]

Lateral displacement of a storey is a function of stiffness,
mass and lateral force distributed on that storey. It is also
known that the lateral force distribution along the height of a
building is directly related to mass and stiffness of each story.
If the P- effect is considered to be the main reason for the
dynamic collapse of building structures during earthquakes,
accurately determined lateral displacements calculated in the
elastic design process may provide very important information
about the structural behavior of the system. Therefore dynamic
analysis procedure is required in many of the actual codes for
accurate distribution of the earthquake forces along the
building height, determining modal effects and local ductility
demands efficiently. Although some of the current codes
define soft storey irregularity by stiffness comparison of
adjacent floors, displacement based criteria for such
irregularity determination is more efficient, since it covers all
the mass, stiffness and force distribution concepts.

DESCRIPTION OF STRUCTURAL MODELS
The open ground storey RC buildings exhibit several
advantages over conventional moment- resisting frames.
However, the structural effectiveness of open ground storey
construction is hindered because soft storey effect exhibit
higher stress at the column connection and are most likely to
fail. In the present work a typical 6 storied RC frame building
is being modeled using the computer software STAAD PRO.
2006. The selection of building configuration is basically done
as per IS: 456, 2000[4] and the loading details are taken as per
IS: 875, 1987 part1 [5] & part2 [6]. The static analysis is then
performed for the modeled RC frame building using the
computer software STAAD PRO. 2006 and the respective
observations are studied. During the development of the
analytical models, several issues are taken into consideration.

Fig 4 Plan View of RC Building

In this work it is important to evaluate the existence of the
soft storey behavior in this structure. For this reasons two
dimensional models are selected for which the soft storey
behavior is easily detected. For this a typical rectangular
building is taken. Having five bays in X-direction each is of
4.5m span, except the middle one which is of 3.0m span and
International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562 Vol.7 No.11 (2012)
Research India Publications; http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer.htm


the Z-direction there are 3 bays of 4m span each. Height of
each story is taken as 3.0m. Five models are generated with
this plan of the building by introducing different variation and
displacement, story drift, base shear and story shear are the
various parameters which are discussed here in this work.
In the present study six storied residential type open
ground RC frame building is considered. The size of the
column is 400mmX400mm, 450mmX450mm (for model-3
only ground storey column size is increased) and slab
thickness is taken as 200mm for floor slabs as well as for the
roof slab.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The section here deals with the observations and
interpretations obtained from the static analysis. Equivalent
static analysis is performed for five different models by using
the computer software. Model-1 is a bare frame. In model-2
masonry infill panels are introduced in upper floors, model-3
is similar to model-2 with only difference that column size of
ground storey is increased by 62% of model-2. Shear walls are
introduced in central core and outer periphery in model-4 and
5 respectively to minimize the soft storey effect. The response
of any structure is a function of its seismic properties, namely
its mass and stiffness. So response of the five models is
investigated in terms of displacement and storey shear.

Displacement in X-Direction
For easy comparison of the lateral displacement of the selected
building, plots of the storey level displacement in X-direction
versus height are made for the five models, all imposed on the
same graph. These are presented in Fig.5. The displacement is
inversely proportional to the stiffness. Because Model1 has the
smallest stiffness so it has the largest displacement
Each model is compared for displacement in X direction.
In model-2 the displacement is reduced by 78.73% in
comparison to the model-1(bare frame). Also in model-3, 4 &
5 it is reduced by 94.05%, 75.42%, and 96.46% respectively
w.r.t to model-1 at top level. The observation shows that the
maximum reduction in displacement is in model-5(96.46%) in
which a shear wall is introduced in X direction as well as in Z
direction. Also model-3(masonry infill in upper floors and
with increased size of column of bottom story) shows a good
amount of reduction in displacement in X direction. It means
the stiffness of the first storey is made within order of equal to
the stiffness of the storey above for these two models. With
the incorporation of masonry infill in upper floors
displacement of bare frame is reduced from 12.935 to
2.751mm. Further the increase in the column size (62% of
model-2) of ground storey, lateral displacement is reduced
from 2.752 to 0.77mm (approximately 72% reduction in
lateral displacement). If we compared the model-2 with
model-5, lateral displacement is reduced up to 83% as the
shear wall is provided in X-direction as well as in Z-direction.

Displacement in X-direction of Corner Column
storey model1 model2 model3 model4 model5
6 12.935 2.751 0.77 3.179 0.457
5 12.045 2.676 0.717 2.658 0.39
4 10.346 2.585 0.647 2.073 0.314
3 8.07 2.482 0.565 1.468 0.231
2 5.449 2.375 0.48 0.887 0.147
1 2.666 2.262 0.4 0.385 0.068
GF 0 0 0 0 0


Fig.5 Displacement in X-Direction


Displacement in Z-Direction
For easy comparison of the lateral displacement of the selected
building, plots of the storey level displacement in Z-direction
versus height are made for the five models, all imposed on the
same graph. These are presented in Fig.6. The displacement is
inversely proportional to the stiffness. Because Model1 has the
smallest stiffness so it has the largest displacement. Each
model is compared for displacement in Z-direction. In model-
2 the displacement is reduced by 75% in comparison to the
model-1(bare frame). Also in model-3, 4 & 5 it is reduced by
92%, 81%, and 95% respectively w.r.t to model-1 at top level.
The observation shows that the maximum reduction in
displacement is in model-5(95%) in which a shear wall is
introduced in X direction as well as in Z direction. Also
model-3(masonry infill in upper floors and with increased size
of column of bottom story) shows a good amount of reduction
in displacement in Z direction. It means the stiffness of the
first storey is made within order of equal to the stiffness of the
storey above for these two models. Displacement of the
building is more in Z-direction in comparison to the X-
direction. In model-5 the displacement is increased by 56% in
Z-direction in comparison of displacement in X-direction at
top level.

Displacement in Z-direction of Corner Column
story model1 model2 model3 model4 model5
6 13.59 3.378 1.104 2.527 0.714
5 12.596 3.209 0.989 2.1 0.597
4 10.782 3.011 0.843 1.62 0.468
3 8.383 2.796 0.678 1.135 0.333
2 5.639 2.576 0.509 0.681 0.204
1 2.744 2.36 0.355 0.296 0.089
GF 0 0 0 0 0

0
2
4
6
8
0 5 10 15
Storey
level
Displacment (mm)
model-1
model-2
model-3
model-4
model-5
International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562 Vol.7 No.11 (2012)
Research India Publications; http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer.htm



Fig.6 Displacement in X-Direction


Storey shear in X-Direction
The parameter which has been considered in this section to
study the soft story effect in the building is the storey shear.
Storey shear at each level in X-direction for earthquake force
in X-direction is obtained for five models (Table III) after
performing the analysis on computer program STAAD.Pro
2006. Plots of the storey shear in X-direction versus height
are made for the five models, all imposed on the same graph.
These are presented in Fig.7. Storey shear in the base of model
2 and 3 is reduced by 76% and 85% when compared with
model 1. But it is increased in model 4 and 5 in which a shear
wall is used, which is due to increase in the seismic weight of
model 4 and 5. Model 3 has minimum storey shear among all
five models. Model 1, 4, 5 have a gentle slope (Figure 4.5)
which means shear is increasing uniformly, but in model 2, 3
there is an abrupt change storey shear at ground level which
means stiffness of the ground storey is less than the storey
above.

storey shear in X Direction (kN)
storey level Model1 Model2 Model3 Model4 Model5
5 237 7 7 256 270
4 735 20 21 847 821
3 1408 36 38 1648 1616
2 2187 49 54 2584 2387
1 3020 77 66 3602 3253
0 3872 928 582 4687 4159


Fig.7 Storey shearin X-Direction

Storey shear in Z-Direction
The parameter which has been considered in this section to
study the soft story effect in the building is the storey shear.
Storey shear at each level in Z-direction for earthquake force
in Z-direction is obtained for five models (Table IV) after
performing the analysis on computer program STAAD.Pro
2006. Plots of the storey shear in Z-direction versus height
are made for the five models, all imposed on the same graph.
These are presented in Fig.8. Storey shear in the base of model
2 and 3 is reduced by 75% and 86% when compared with
model 1. But it is increased in model 4 and 5 in which a shear
wall is used, which is due to increase in the seismic weight of
model 4 and 5. Model 3 has minimum storey shear among all
five models. Model 1, 4, 5 have a gentle slope (Fig.8 ) which
means shear is increasing uniformly, but in model 2, 3 there is
an abrupt change storey shear at ground level which means
stiffness of the ground storey is less than the storey above.

Storey shear in Z Direction (kN)

storey level Model1 Model2 Model3 Model4 Model5
5 237 13 9 181 211
4 735 37 28 375 627
3 1408 67 52 601 1158
2 2187 98 76 837 1799
1 3020 122 82 1061 2483
0 3872 973 521 1242 3118


Fig.8 Storey shearin Z-Direction

CONCLUSIONS
Lateral displacement is largest in bare frame with soft storey
defect both for earthquake force in X-direction as well as in Z-
direction for corner columns as well as for intermediate
columns. Displacement of intermediate column is more by
0.02% and 0.04% in X and Z-direction respectively w.r.t.
corner column.
Minimum displacement for corner column is observed in
the building in which a shear wall is introduced in X-direction
as well as in Z-direction. But in case of intermediate column,
displacement is minimum in building having masonry infill in
upper floors and with increased column stiffness of bottom
story in comparison to the building with shear wall in X-
direction as well as in Z-direction.
Building having masonry infill in upper floors and with
increased column stiffness of bottom story and building with
shear wall in core has a small first storey displacement of
about 18% and 16% respectively of that of building having
masonry infill in upper floors only. This implies that crucial
displacement may be effectively reduced if the stiffness of the
first storey is made with in the order of magnitude equal to the
stiffness of storey above.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
0 5 10 15
Storey
level
Displacment (mm)
model1
model2
model3
model4
model5
0
2
4
6
0 2000 4000 6000
Storey
Level
Storey Shear (kN)
Model1
Model2
Model3
Model4
Model5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
0 2000 4000 6000
Storey
Level
Storey Shear (kN)
Model1
Model2
Model3
Model4
Model5
International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562 Vol.7 No.11 (2012)
Research India Publications; http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer.htm


Building with masonry infill in upper floors only shows a
sudden change in slope of displacement in X-direction as well
as in Z-direction. This is because of abrupt change in storey
stiffness. Due to which greater strength is required for first
storey columns, which is minimized in building with masonry
infill in upper floors and with increased column stiffness of
bottom story by increasing the column size of first storey also
by incorporating masonry panel in central bay on all four
sides.
Buildings with shear wall in core and shear wall in X-
direction as well as in Z-direction have uniform displacement
because of shear wall. Which shows a gradual change of
stiffness between the lower soft storey and the upper floors
that is essentially required.
Buildings having masonry infill in upper floors and with
increased column stiffness of bottom story performance well
in case of storey shear. Storey shear is minimum in building
having masonry infill in upper floors and with increased
column stiffness of bottom story amongst of all five models
which is 15% of bare frame at first storey.


References

[1] Alberto Parducci, Fabrizio Comodini, (2005) A
synergic dissipation approach to retrofit framed
structures with a soft first storey, 9
th
world seminar
on seismic isolation, energy dissipation and active
vibration control of structures, Kobe, Japan published.
[2] M. A. Altuntop, Analysis of building structures with
soft stories Msc dissertation, Dept Civil Eng., Atilim
Univ.
[3] V. Sharma, Seismic response of R.C.C building with
soft storey, Mtech dissertation, Dept Civil Eng, NIT
kurukshetra, India.
[4] Indian Standard 456 2000, Plain and reinforced
concrete-code of practice, India.
[5] Indian Standard 875 1987 part 1, Code of Practice for
design loads (other than earthquakes) for buildings and
structures, India.
[6] Indian Standard 875 1987 part 2, Code of Practice for
design loads (other than earthquakes) for buildings and
structures, India.
[7] Samir Helou, Abdul Razzaq, (2008) Dynamic
behavior of reinforced concrete structures with
masonry walls, An-Najah univ. j. Res (N.Sc) vol. 22.