INTRODUCTION

• Open first storey is a typical feature in the modern multistorey

constructions in urban India

This paper highlights the importance of explicitly recognizing the

presence of the open first storey in the analysis of the building.
•  Alternate measures, involving stiffness balance of the open first
storey and the storey above, are proposed to reduce the irregularity
introduced by the open first storey. The effect of soil flexibility on the
above is also discussed in this paper.
 CONCLUSIONS
• In this paper, the seismic vulnerability of buildings with soft first storey is shown through
an example building. The drift and the strength demands in the first storey columns are
very large for buildings with soft ground storeys. It is not very easy to provide such
capacities in the columns of the first storey. The under-lying principle of any solution to
this problem is in increasing the stiffnesses of the first storey such that the first storey is at
least 50% as stiff as the second storey, i.

The possible schemes to achieve the above are provision of stiffer columns in the first
storey, and provision of a concrete service core in the building. The former is effective only
in reducing the lateral drift demand on the first storey columns. However the latter is
effective in reducing the drift as well as the strength demands on the first storey
columns. Flexible soil conditions may require alternate solutions than those described in
this paper, to reduce seismic drift and strength demands on the columns in the first storey.
 INTRODUCTION
• A large number of buildings in India are constructed with masonry infills for
functional and architectural reasons. Masonry infills are normally considered
as non-structural elements and their stiffness contributions are generally
ignored in practice. Masonry walls contribute to the stiffness of the infill under
the action of lateral load. In the case of buildings under consideration, integral
connection is assumed. The composite behaviour of an infilled frame imparts
lateral stiffness and strength to the building. The typical behaviour of an
infilled frame subjected to lateral load is illustrated in Figures 1 (a) and (b)
 CONCLUSIONS
• The influence of masonry infill on the response of multi-storeyed
building under seismic loading is illustrated through typical
examples. Also, the bending moments in the ground floor columns
increase , and the mode of failure is by soft storey mechanism
The lateral load resisting mechanism of the masonry infilled frame
essentially different from the bare frame. In contrast, the infill frame
behaves like a braced frame resisted by a truss mechanism formed by
the compression in the masonry infill panel and tension in the
column.
 INTRODUCTION
• The frame bays in the ground storey are not infilled with masonry infills as it is
done in the upper storeys. This open ground storey causes stiffness related
soft-storey effect and strength related weak-storey effect, resulting in large
earthquake demands and discontinuity in flow of lateral earthquake forces in
the open ground storey. Recent earthquakes that occurred have shown that a
large number of existing reinforced concrete stilt buildings are vulnerable to
damage or even collapse during a strong earthquake. The soft-storey effect can
happen also in uniformly infilled reinforced concrete frames, which was
observed in the Kocaeli earthquake.

The mass of each storey is replaced by a lumped mass at each floor level.
 CONCLUSIONS
• Reinforced concrete frames with brick infill exhibit significantly higher initial stiffness
and strength. The initial stiffness of the soft-storey frame is twice that of the bare frame
and the retrofitting of the severely damaged soft-storey frame increases the stiffness by
more than 20%.
• The bare frame exhibits ductile behaviour than the soft-storey frame. The ductility ratio of
the bare frame is one and a half times greater than the soft-storey frame which
demonstrates the ductility demand in the columns of the soft-storey frame.
• The frames are found to be adequate for gravity loads and for moderate earthquakes.
However, the shear demand in the soft-storey frame is more than two and a half times
greater than that in the bare frame.
• The number of hinges formed in the beams and columns at the performance point can be
used to study the vulnerability of the building.
• The results of the investigation suggest that the soft-storey frames with masonry infills can
be adequately simulated using static nonlinear pushover analysis.