Shake-table responses of a low-rise RC building model having irregularities at first story

Abstract

This paper presents the seismic responses of a 1:5-scale five-story reinforced concrete building model, which represents a residential apartment building that has a high irregularity of weak story, soft story, and torsion simultaneously at the ground story. The model was subjected to a series of uni- and bi-directional earthquake simulation tests. Analysis of the test results leads to the following conclusions: (1) The model survived the table excitations simulating the design earthquake with the PGA of 0.187 g without any significant damages, though it was not designed against earthquakes; (2) The fundamental mode was the torsion mode. The second and third orthogonal translational modes acted independently while the torsion mode showed a strong correlation with the predominant translational mode; (3) After a significant excursion into inelastic behavior, this correlation disappeared and the maximum torsion and torsion deformation remained almost constant regardless of the intensity of the two orthogonal excitations; And, (4) the lateral resistance and stiffness of the critical columns and wall increased or decreased significantly with the large variation of acting axial forces caused by the high bi-directional overturning moments and rocking phenomena under the bi-directional excitations.