International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET)

Volume 9, Issue 6, June 2018, pp. 208–214, Article ID: IJCIET_09_06_024

Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/ijciet/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=9&IType=6
ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316

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PERFORMANCE BASED STUDY ON SOFT

STOREY BEHAVIOUR OF RC FRAME
BUILDINGS
Md Tasleem
Civil Engineering Department, Institute of Engineering and Technology,
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

Dr. K. Narayan
Civil Engineering Department, Institute of Engineering and Technology,
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

ABSTRACT
Reinforced concrete frame buildings are common building structure. Masonry
infill in such buildings serves as cladding and partitions. The infill increases the
stiffness of the building. However, infill may be absent in ground storey or other
storey for free parking, open entrance etc. In such situation, the storey without infill
has less stiffness. This storey is said to be a soft storey. There is utility of soft storey
buildings functionally, but from a seismic performance point of view such buildings
are vulnerable to damage. From the performance of soft storey buildings in past
earthquakes it was evident that the major type of failure that occurred in open storey
buildings included snapping of lateral ties, crushing of core concrete, buckling of
longitudinal reinforcement bars etc. Due to the presence of infill walls in the entire
upper storey except for the open storey makes the upper storeys much stiffer than the
open storey. Thus, the upper storeys move almost together as a single block, and most
of the horizontal displacement of the building occurs in the soft storey itself.
Key words: Masonry infill, Soft Storey, Storey stiffness and Pushover Analysis.
Cite this Article: Md Tasleem and Dr. K. Narayan, Performance Based Study on Soft
Storey Behaviour of RC Frame Buildings, International Journal of Civil Engineering
and Technology, 9(6), 2018, pp. 208–214.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=9&IType=6

1. INTRODUCTION
A Soft Storey building is that where a particular storey has substantially less stiffness in
comparison with adjacent storeys. As per Indian seismic code IS 1893 (part 1): 2002 a soft
storey is one in which lateral stiffness of a storey is,

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 Md Tasleem and Dr. K. Narayan

 Less than 70% of the above one storey.

Or,
 Less than 80% of the average stiffness of three storeys above.

It is a most common type of the vertical irregularity occurs in buildings.

A soft storey in a building is introduced by absence of infill walls at that storey where as
other storeys are having full infill due to which that storey without infill have less stiffness as
compare to other storeys. This irregularity in building causes serious earthquake damage and
can occur at any storey of a building.
Storey stiffness (k) for the building

Soft storey when

<

Or,

<

2. CODAL METHOD OF DESIGN

2.1. Indian standards IS-1893 (Part 1): 2002
As per bureau of Indian standard the building which have soft storey, special arrangement
should be made to increase the lateral strength and stiffness of soft storey. The dynamic
analysis for the building is carried out including the strength and stiffness effect of infill’s and
inelastic defamation in the members, particularly, those in the soft storey and the member
designed accordingly. The design criteria are to be adopted as pe IS 1893 (pat 1) : 2002 after
carrying out the earthquake analysis, neglecting the effect of infill walls in other storeys the
columns and beams of the soft stoe have to be designed for 2.5 times the storey shears and
moments calculated under seismic loads.

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 Performance Based Study on Soft Storey Behaviour of RC Frame Buildings

2.2. Eurocode 8 EN 1998-1: December 2003

There is no suggestion to check criteria of vertical irregularity in Eurocode, as in of other
codes. It recommends increasing the resistance of columns in the less infilled storey in
proportion to the amount of deficit in strength of masonry infill (MI). If there is a drastic
reduction of infill walls in any storey compared to the adjoining storeys, seismic forces in the
less infilled storey shall be increased by a multiplication factor (MF) . Thus seismic design
forces in columns only, are increased by a factor as follows:
[ ]

Where, is the total reduction of the lateral resistance of MI in the ground storey
compared to that in the storey above, is the sum of seismic shear forces acting on all
structural vertical elements of the storey concerned. The term q is called behavior factor,
which accounts for energy dissipation capacity of the structure and the value varies from 1.5
to 4.68 depending upon the type of building systems, ductility classes, and plan regularity in
the building. The maximum vertical irregularities allowed in buildings are such that q is never
more than 4.68, which is larger than the factor 2.5 given in the Indian code IS 1893 (Part1):
2002.

3. SCOPE OF THE PRESENT STUDY

A number of RC frame buildings having same plan but with different storeys have considered
in this study.
Storey Groups: Following different storeys have considered,
4-Storey
6-Storey
8-Storey
10-Storey

4. PERFORMANCE OF BARE FRAME BUILDINGS

Reinforced concrete frame buildings without infill have been studied. For the analysis purpose
buildings having regular plan with different storeys has been considered. Zone factor has been
taken as zone V and soil site has been considered as medium. The importance factor for all
buildings has been taken as 1. The material have been used, M25 grade of concrete and Fe500
for steel.
The performance point of the buildings has been evaluated by pushover analysis under: (a)
Uniform load and (b) Mode proportional load. The performance point has been found for
DBE level and MCE level separately.
All buildings have been designed as per IS 1893 (Part 1): 2002 and IS 456: 2000. For
infilled buildings base shear correction factor has been applied as per codal provisions with
period formula. Capacity design has been done for achieving the strong column weak beam
concept. The code has incorporated the effect of infill panels through periodic formula which
is also known as period capping. The nonlinear static pushover analysis has been done for the
finding out the performance of the buildings. In design of building the infill strut element is
not modelled and the design is done with period capping formulae.

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 Md Tasleem and Dr. K. Narayan

Nomenclature: Following Nomenclature have been used for different type of buildings,

Table 1 Nomenclature of Building considered

Building Meaning Name of considered building
Nomenclature
An n Storey Frame building A4,A6,A8,A10

4000 8-storey in Long Direction

□ IO 4000 8-storey in Short Direction □ IO
◊ LS ◊ LS

Base Shear (kN)

3000 ∆ CP
Base Shear (kN)

∆ CP 3000
× PP DBE × PP DBE
2000 ○ PP MCE 2000 ○ PP MCE
mode mode
1000 proportinal 1000 proportional

0
0
0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40
0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30
Roof Displacement (m) Roof Displacement (m)

Figure 1 Pushover curves for 8 storey building

(a)A8 in long direction under DBE (b)A8 in long direction under MCE

Figure 2 Plastic hinges at PP for typical frames

(c)A8 in Short direction under DBE (d)A8 in Short direction under MCE

Figure 3 Plastic hinges at PP for typical frames

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 Performance Based Study on Soft Storey Behaviour of RC Frame Buildings

Table 2 Performance level of RC Frame buildings under DBE and MCE level
Name of Level of performance at
Building DBE MCE
Long Direction Short Direction Long Direction Short direction
A4 IO IO LS LS
A6 IO IO LS LS
A8 IO IO IO LS
A10 IO IO IO LS

From push over analysis it has been observed that there is IO and LS level performance
found at performance point in all the buildings and there is no performance level above these
two levels. Further, it is also observed that there is no LS level of performance at PP in the
buildings when they are analyzed under DBE. The LS level of performance occurs in the
buildings only under MCE.
The plastic hinges at the performance point have been show. The colour pattern to identify
the performance level, pink colour indicates member to be in IO limit, blue colour indicates
that member is within LS limit and cyan colour indicates that member is within CP limit. All
other colour indicates that the member is beyond the CP level.

5. PERFORMANCE OF SOFT STOREY BUILDINGS

Reinforced concrete frame buildings with infill have been studied. The effect of infill have
been taken by infill strut modeling as per FEMA 356 by keeping ground storey open means
there will be no infill strut element, the codal provisions have been applied on this open storey
and the analysis have been done for all the buildings.
Nomenclature: Following Nomenclature have been used for different type of buildings,

Table 3 Nomenclature of Building considered

Building Meaning Name of considered building
Nomenclature
Bn-m n Storey Frame building, all with infill strut B4-0,B6-0,B8-0,B10-0
element excepting level

8-storey in Long Direction □ IO 8-storey in Short Direction □ IO

5000 ◊ LS 5000 ◊ LS
∆ CP ∆ CP
4000 4000
× PP DBE × PP DBE
Base Shear (kN)
Base Shear (kN)

○ PP MCE ○ PP MCE
3000 3000

2000 Mode Proportional 2000

Mode Proportional
Uniform Load 1000
1000 Uniform Load
0
0
0.000.020.040.060.080.100.120.140.16
0.000.020.040.060.080.100.120.140.16
Roof Displacement (m)
Roof Displacement (m)

Figure 4 Pushover curves for B8-0 building

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 Md Tasleem and Dr. K. Narayan

(e) B8-0 in long direction under DBE (f) B8-0 in long direction under MCE

Figure 5 Plastic hinges at PP for typical frames

(g) B8-0 in Short direction under DBE (h) B8-0 in Short direction under MCE

Figure 6 Plastic hinges at PP for typical frames

Table 4 Performance level of buildings under DBE and MCE level

Name of Building Level of performance at
DBE MCE
Long Direction Short Direction Long Direction Short direction
B4-0 IO IO IO IO
B6-0 IO IO IO IO
B8-0 IO IO IO IO
B10-0 IO IO IO LS

From pushover analysis it has been observed that IO level of performance occurs at
performance point in all the buildings, where as LS level of performance occur under MCE in
10-storey building only. There is no performance level above IO and LS level of performance.
It is also observed that there is no LS level of performance at PP in the buildings when they
are analysed under DBE.

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 Performance Based Study on Soft Storey Behaviour of RC Frame Buildings

6. RESULT AND DICUSSION

From present study the following results have been obtained:
No soft storey behaviour has been observed when the buildings was designed as per codal
provisions for base shear correction and with capacity design without infill strut element, even
soft story design provisions are not applied.
The soft storey formations have been observed in all the buildings when the factor
suggested by IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2002 is not applied on members of ground storey.
There is no plastic hinges formed in the columns when the infill effect have been
considered and ground storey members are designed with 2.5 times storey shears and
moments.
Most of the buildings perform IO level of performance under MCE which is safe. By
increasing the number of storey the change in performance can be observed and LS level of
performance have been observed in 10 storey building that means there is possibility of higher
level of performance in increasing the number of storey in the building under MCE. Only IO
level of performance has been observed when the buildings have been analyzes under DBE.

7. CONCLUSIONS
On the basis of present study it can be concluded that the value of multiplication factor
specified in IS 1893 (Part 1) : 2002 is over estimated.

REFERENCES
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[3] Choudhury S. (2008) “Performance Based Seismic Design of Hospital Buildings” Ph.D.
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[4] Amelle Anthoine, “ A simple displacement contol teqenic for pushove analysis”,
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