TECHNICAL SEMINAR

ON

“COMPARISON BETWEEN GREEN

BUILDINGS TO CONCRETE
BUILDINGS”
 INTRODUCTION

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 MECHANISM OF SOFT STOREY

• An example of this is an open /hollow ground floor for parking purposes that has upper storeys with
brick masonry as partition walls. In such, ground storey possesses lower storey-stiffness to that of the
upper storeys thereby rendering it to a Soft storey. Most of the existing commercial complexes have this
feature in a common , those are quite vulnerable in earthquakes.

• Such variation in storey stiffness could trigger “Soft storey mechanism” failure type.
•In Los Angeles 2016 following San Francisco's Ordinance, the city adopted a similar ordinance
targeting soft-story apartment buildings first. This ordinance is to reduce structural damage in the event
of an earthquake by reinforcing "soft-storey" areas with steel structures. A soft-storey building is
described as existing wood-frame buildings with soft, weak, or open-front walls and existing non-ductile
concrete buildings in the ordinance. Most of these buildings were built before 1978 before building
codes were changed.
IS 1893: 2002 guidelines for buildings with soft storey problem:-
•The code suggests that forces in the column ,beams and shear walls( if any ) under the action of seismic loads specified in the
code may be obtained by considering the bare frame buildings(without any infills).

•Beams and columns in the open ground storey are required to be designed for 2.5 times the storey shears and moments calculated
under seismic loads specified in the other relevant clauses .

•the columns designed and detailed for the calculated storey shears and moments, shear walls placed symmetrically in both,
directions of the building as far away from the centre of the building as feasible: to be designed exclusively for 1.5 times the lateral
storey shear force calculated as before.

•It is still feasible to add lateral bracing to overcome the openness of a ground story.
 REMEDIES

Retrofit strategy refers to options of increasing the strength, stiffness and ductility of the elements or the building as a whole.
Several retrofit strategies may be selected under a retrofit scheme of a building.

Retrofit options include (with associated foundation work): Shear walls that are parallel to the open side or sides;

• Diagonal bracing, such as X-braces. Usually made of steel, these braced frames are often seen in storefront retrofit situations;

• Steel or reinforced concrete frames that resist lateral forces, which can be arranged around openings; these column-beam frames
have moment-resisting joints.
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EXAMPLE:
 CONCLUSION
• With the growing urbanisation we need to make advancements in soft storey.Lot of countries are doing
research on the soft storey to prevent the collapsing of buildings by taking measures.

• RC frame buildings with soft story are known to perform poorly during in strong earthquake shaking .

• Investigations has been made to study the seismic behaviour of such buildings subjected to earthquake
load so that some guideline could be developed to minimize the risk involved in such type of buildings. It
has been found earthquake forces by treating them as ordinary frames results in an underestimation of base
shear.

• Investigators analysis numerically and use various computer programs such as Staad Pro, ETABS,
SAP2000 etc for effective results.

• A special arrangement needs to be made to increase the lateral strength and stiffness of the soft/open
storey.
 REFERENCE

• Research gate website

• Wikipedia

• Building research website

• International research journal of Engineering and Technology

• Images from google