Effects of Frame Discontinuity on Seismic Behaviour of RC Buildings

Within the scope of the study, the effects of frame discontinuities on the earthquake behaviour of reinforced concrete buildings are determined by linear and nonlinear time history analyses. For this reason, 2-, 4- and 7-storey 3-D reference buildings without any irregularity at first which represented low and mid-rise existing building stock in Turkey are designed according to the 2007 Turkish Earthquake Code. Then, protrusions to these buildings are added to create building models with heavy overhang. Two different cases of discontinuities are composed for the reference and heavy overhang building models to investigate the discontinuity effects. A total of 432 dynamic analyses are performed with 12 ground motion records to obtain parameters such as base shear ratio, roof drift ratios and interstory drift ratios for x direction where discontinuities located. These parameters are compared between regular and irregular buildings in order to understand the seismic behaviour of buildings with discontinuities. In buildings with discontinuities, base shear demands are low while displacement demands are high compared to regular buildings. It has been observed that reference buildings are more affected by discontinuities than buildings with heavy overhangs.