Seismic Assessment of RC Frame Buildings

In the chapter, the N2 method and the non-linear dynamic analysis (NDA) are applied for the assessment of seismic performance of two variants of a 4-storey reinforced concrete (RC) frame building. The first variant is represented by the bare frames, whereas in the second variant infill panels are included in the upper three storeys, thus creating a soft first storey structure. In one direction, the results clearly show the detrimental effect of infills which generate a storey mechanism instead of a global mechanism which occurs in the case of the bare frame structure. In the other direction, a story mechanism occurs also in the case of the bare frame structure. The infills shift the mechanism from the third to the first storey. There is good agreement of the results obtained by the N2 method and NDA. The results indicate that both variants of the building are able to survive the design ground motion.