ACI STRUCTURAL JOURNAL
Title no. 94-S14
Behavior of Gravity Load Designed Reinforced Concrete
Buildings Subjected to Earthquakes
by Adel G. El-Attar, Richard N. White, and Peter Gergely
Two small-scale reinforced concrete building models were tested on the
Cornell University shake table. The models were a 1/6 scale two-story office
building and a 1/8-scale three-story one-bay by three-bays office building.
Both structures were designed to resist purely gravity loads without regard
to lateral loads (wind or earthquake forces). The reinforcement details were
based on typical reinforced concrete frame structures constructed in the
central and eastern United States over the past 50 to 60 years, as charac-
terized by (a) low reinforcement ratio in the columns, (b) discontinuous pos-
itive moment reinforcement in the beams at the column locations, (c) little
or no confining reinforcement in the joint regions, and (d) lap splices located
immediately above the floor level. Both models were tested using the time-
compressed Taft 1952 S69E ground motion scaled to increasingly large
peak ground accelerations.
Test results indicated that gravity load design (GLD) reinforced
concrete buildings without walls will experience very large deformations
associated with a considerable stiffness degradation during a moderate
earthquake. The high flexibility produced significant P-Δ effects in the
three-story building model. Although the nonseismic details associated
with the gravity load design philosophy forms a source of damage, the
experiments indicate that these details will not necessarily lead to
collapse or to a complete failure mechanism.
Comparison with analytical results indicated that inclusion of the slab
contribution to beam flexural strength is a vital step in the assessment of the
performance of GLD reinforced concrete structures since it has the potential of
altering the relatively ductile strong column-weak beam mechanism to a
more brittle soft-story mechanism.
Keywords: earthquake-resistant structures; frames; joints (junctions); office
buildings; reinforced concrete.
RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE
The behavior of gravity load design (GLD) reinforced
concrete structures during earthquakes is still not well under-
stood. This paper reports the results of one of the first exper-
imental tests on three-dimensional GLD reinforced concrete
model buildings on the shaking table. Test results presented
here will help designers to identify the major weaknesses in
this type of building and will provide background data for
proper strengthening strategies.
INTRODUCTION
Recent seismic studies and historical records indicate that
damaging earthquakes can occur in the central and eastern
United States, where many thousands of buildings have been
ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997
TECHNICAL PAPER
designed and detailed to resist primarily gravity loads
(termed hereafter as GLD, an acronym for gravity load
design). Additional experimental evidence is clearly needed
to understand the behavior of this class of buildings and to
develop more reliable analytical tools to predict their seismic
damage potential. Based on both the new experimental
results given here and supporting analytical information, risk
assessment can be conducted for existing GLD reinforced
concrete buildings located in various seismic zones.
Typical reinforcement details for GLD buildings have
been identified through a careful review of earlier versions
of the ACI 318 code and related ACI detailing manuals
published since 1940 and by consulting several design
offices with long design experience in the central and eastern
United States. This type of detailing is characterized by (a)
low reinforcement ratio in the columns, (b) discontinuous
positive moment reinforcement in the beams at the column
locations, (c) little or no confining reinforcement in the joint
regions, and (d) lap splices located immediately above the
floor level.
The study presented here is part of a comprehensive
research effort conducted by the National Center for Earth-
quake Engineering Research (NCEER) on the seismic
damage assessment and performance evaluation of GLD
reinforced concrete buildings.
The major objectives of the current investigation were:
1. Develop improved small-scale modeling techniques for
reinforced concrete structures subjected to dynamic loading.
2. Investigate the performance of GLD reinforced concrete
buildings by testing two complete small-scale structures on
the shake table.
3. Evaluate the reliability of one of the recently developed
analytical modeling techniques to predict the response of
these buildings.
ACI Structural Journal, V. 94, No. 2, March-April 1997.
Received Jan. 26, 1995, and reviewed under Institute publication policies. Copy-
right © 1997, American Concrete Institute. All rights reserved, including the making
of copies unless permission is obtained from the copyright proprietors. Pertinent
discussion will be published in the January-February 1998 ACI Structural Journal if
received by Sept. 1, 1997.
133

Adel G. El-Attar is an assistant professor in the Structural Engineering Department,
Cairo University, Egypt. He received his BSCE and MSCE degrees from Cairo Uni-
versity and his PhD from Cornell University. His research interests include concrete
plasticity and experimental and analytical modeling of building and bridge structures,
with particular emphasis on seismic performance.
Richard N. White, FACI, is the James A. Friend Family Professor of Engineering at
Cornell University. He is a former vice president of ACI and a member of ACI’s board
of directors and several ACI committees and task forces.
Peter Gergely, FACI, a faculty member in structural engineering at Cornell University
for 33 years, passed away in August 1995 after a long and courageous battle against
brain cancer. He served on a number of ACI committees and participated in many
other ACI activities.
The overall research plan is shown in Fig. 1. This paper
focuses on results from the experiments on the two model
buildings (bare frames with slabs but without walls) and
comparison of these results to numerical analysis results.1-3
DESCRIPTION OF MODEL STRUCTURES
Selection of the geometric scales was based on the
dimensions and load capacity of the shake table, taking into
account the availability of the desired sizes of model rein-
forcement. It was decided that a geometric scale factor S1
(where S1 = prototype dimension divided by the model
dimension) in the range of 5 to 8 would be appropriate.
The first model was a 1/6 scale two-story, one-bay by one-
bay office building (Fig. 2). A similar building with seismic
details was tested at the University of California-Berkeley at a
7/ scale.4 The main objectives of this pilot test were to check
10
out the shake table control system and data acquisition system
and also provide some understanding of the response of a very
simple GLD building. The prototype structure was designed
and detailed for dead load plus 50 psf live load. The resulting
prototype building reinforcement details are shown in Fig. 3.
Model dimensions and reinforcement were obtained using
standard similitude requirements of true replica models.1
The second model (Fig. 4) was a 1/8 scale three-story, one-
bay by three-bay (in the shaking direction) office building,
Fig. 1—Flow chart of research program.
134
again built with no walls.3 A similar model was tested on the
shake table of the State University of New York (SUNY) at
Buffalo at a 1/3 scale.5,6 This structure also was designed for
dead load plus 50 psf live load. It represented a more realistic
building than the two-story model as it had multiple floors
and bays, thus containing both interior and exterior joints.
Geometry and reinforcement were again determined using
standard similitude requirements of true replica models.1
Fig. 5 shows the reinforcement details for the prototype and
the model buildings.
MODEL MATERIALS
Model concrete
One of the most challenging tasks met in the small-scale
modeling of reinforced concrete structures is the selection of
a microconcrete mix that can faithfully reproduce a three-
dimensional failure criterion of the prototype concrete.
Given that such a criterion is typically not known for a given
prototype concrete, this similitude condition is usually
relaxed to modeling four properties of the prototype
concrete: compressive strength f c′ , ultimate strain εcu, secant
modulus Ec, and tensile strength f t′ . Previous research
conducted at Cornell University has indicated that by care-
fully selecting the water-cement (w/c) ratio, the aggregate/
cement (a/c) ratio, and the aggregate grading, these parame-
ters can be effectively controlled. Detailed information on
the microconcretes used for these two models is provided by
Kim et al.1
Model reinforcement
Small-scale reinforcement is modeled by reproducing
the prototype values of yield strength fy, extent of yield
plateau, post-yield behavior (strain-hardening), and bond
characteristics as described in Reference 1. The model
bars were heat-treated to obtain the desired yield strengths
(60 ksi for the two-story building and 40 ksi for the three-story
building) and yield plateaus.
ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997
 Tests on two prototype and four 1/6-scale cantilever beam produced by the seismic loading as explained in References 2
specimens reported in Reference 1 indicated that best corre- through 4.
lation was obtained with threaded steel rods as model rein-
forcement. Model and prototype hysteretic load-deflection TEST RESULTS
responses correlated well up to a ductility factor of 6. Two-story building test results
A summary of the simulated earthquake test results is
MODEL LOADING AND INSTRUMENTATION presented in Table 1. Measured values of floor displace-
Self-weight similitude in both models was achieved by ments and base shear for a moderate earthquake (Taft 0.26g-
adding lead blocks, with special attention given to the attach- 1) and a strong earthquake (Taft 0.75g-1) are plotted versus
ment technique to avoid any possible stiffening of the model time in Fig. 7 and 8 respectively. The displacement records
floor slabs by the attached blocks. Floor accelerations were indicate that both floors were moving in phase even after the
measured using piezoresistive accelerometers. Displacements model was severely damaged. It was apparent that the first
were measured at two points (25 in. apart) on each floor to mode dominated the model response during all tests.
monitor any rotational motion during the seismic tests.
The three-story model also had internal force transducers
(load cells) at the midheight of the first and second-story
columns (Fig. 5). The load cells measured axial force,
bending moment, and shearing force in two perpendicular
directions (with a maximum interference of 3 percent), thus
providing considerable information about the state of forces
in the structure during the seismic tests. The internal config-
uration of the used load cells along with a sample calibration
curve are shown in Fig. 6. Details of the similitude require-
ments, model design and fabrication, loading techniques,
and instrumentation are given in References 2 and 3.

TEST PROCEDURE
Both models were tested using the time-scaled Taft 1952
S69E earthquake with peak ground acceleration set at
increasingly higher values. Each seismic test was preceded
and followed by a static test and a free vibration test to deter-
mine the change in the structural properties (such as the
flexibility matrix, fundamental period, damping ratio, etc.) (a)

(b)

Fig. 3—Reinforcement details of two-story prototype

Fig. 2—Layout of two-story building prototype (model) (model) building: (a) general reinforcement layout; (b) typi-
dimensions: (a) elevation; and (b) plan. cal joint detail.

ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997 135

 (a)

(c)

(b)

Fig. 4—Layout of three-story building (prototype dimensions given): (a) side view; (b) elevation; (c) plan.

Fig. 5—Reinforcement details of three-story prototype (model) building: (a) elevation; (b) exterior joint (prototype); (c) interior
joint (prototype).

136 ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997

 Hairline cracks appeared at the first-story column construc- Table 1—Summary of two-story model simulated
tion joints during Run Taft 0.26g-1. In subsequent runs, cracks earthquake test results
remained localized at these zones and did not spread over the Maximum story First Maximum story
displacement, in. story acceleration, g Maximum
columns’ height. After Run Taft 0.45g, wide, deep cracks drift, base shear,
were observed in the beams around the locations of discontin- Test First Second percent First Second kips
uous positive beam reinforcement (at the joint panels), Taft 0.26g-1 0.229 0.370 1.27 0.542 0.706 0.941
indicating bond failure and pending pullout of these bars. Taft 0.26g-2 0.244 0.377 1.36 0.745 0.914 1.005
Change of model properties including natural frequencies, Taft 0.36g 0.348 0.545 1.93 0.720 1.096 1.119
damping ratios, and flexibility matrix coefficients is shown in Taft 0.45g 0.405 0.600 2.25 0.540 1.167 1.156
Table 2. It can be seen that cracking during Run Taft 0.26g-1 Taft 0.75g-1 0.741 1.228 4.12 0.767 1.343 1.307
reduced the fundamental frequency by 29 percent. The next Taft 0.75g-2 0.789 1.036 4.38 0.643 0.920 1.104
major change was during Run Taft 0.75g-1, where a reduction Taft 0.9g 0.911 1.146 5.06 0.367 0.525 0.659

Fig. 6—Load cell internal configuration and sample calibration curve: (a) elevation
(Face 1); (b) plan; (c) Face 2; (d) Face 3; (e) Face 4; (f) typical interaction curve between
normal force N and moment M and shears Q1 and Q2.

ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997 137

 Fig. 7—Two-story model response, Run Taft 0.26g-1: (a) first floor displace-
ment; (b) second floor displacement; (c) base shear.

Fig. 8—Two-story model response, Run Taft 0.75g-1: (a) first floor displace-
ment; (b) second floor displacement; (c) base shear.

138 ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997

of 47 percent was observed. Table 2 also indicates that the stiffness degradation (18 percent reduction of fundamental
flexibility matrix coefficients increased gradually with the frequency corresponding to 50 percent reduction in stiff-
intensity of the ground motion. ness). The maximum base shear during this run (1.25 kips)
The model did not collapse under even the highest level
dynamic loading (0.75 g). However, significant stiffness Table 2—Variation of two-story model properties
deterioration was recorded (40 percent reduction in stiffness due to seismic tests
after Run Taft 0.36g). After Run Taft 0.75g-1, the model Natural Damping ratio, Flexibility matrix
stiffness was about 17 percent of the uncracked stiffness. frequency, Hz percent of ζcr coefficients, in./lb × 103
Few more cracks appeared after this run at the top and Test f1 f2 ζ1 ζ2 f11 f12 f22
bottom column sections, while old cracks at the discontin- Uncracked 6.25 17.19 — — 0.100 0.113 0.225
uous positive beam reinforcement became wider, indicating Taft 0.26g-1 4.44 13.18 2.64 2.44 0.254 0.292 0.532
a possible pullout of these bars (Fig. 9). Taft 0.26g-2 4.07 12.10 3.06 3.14 0.300 0.350 0.660
It is useful to recognize that even a complete pullout of the Taft 0.36g 3.66 11.70 4.19 3.85 0.345 0.406 0.733
discontinuous positive moment beam reinforcement in a Taft 0.45g 3.61 11.48 4.76 3.72 0.426 0.473 0.773
GLD building cannot be the primary cause of failure. When Taft 0.75g-1 2.93 10.31 4.49 3.46 0.544 0.682 1.192
a discontinuous bottom reinforcing bar starts to pull out of Taft 0.75g-2 2.93 10.30 4.50 3.43 0.640 0.790 1.338
the joint region, the accompanying beam flexural cracks at Taft 0.90g 2.45 9.48 4.53 3.43 0.775 0.955 1.578
the face of the column become visibly larger. The lateral
stiffness of the frame reduces, but a collapse mechanism
cannot develop, provided that the negative reinforcement at
the other end of the beam is below yield. A state of
“controlled” hinging action occurs, with the discontinuous
bars at the positive moment carrying a reduced tensile force.
When the frame moments reverse, the bottom cracks tend to
close (but not completely) as slip of the discontinuous bars is
recovered. Cyclic loading further degrades the peak tensile
capacity and axial stiffness of the discontinuous bars.

Three-story building test results

General behavior—Top story displacements and base
shears recorded during Run Taft 0.18g are given in Fig. 10.
Similar data for Run Taft 0.35g are plotted in Fig. 11 and 12
for the story displacements and story shears respectively. As
previously observed for the two-story model, all three stories
were moving in phase, indicating the domination of the first
mode. A brief summary of the seismic tests is given in Table 3,
where it can be seen that during Run Taft 0.18g the model Fig. 9—Cracking pattern of two-story model after Run Taft
showed a large degree of flexibility associated with a high 0.75g-1.

Fig. 10—Three-story model response, Run Taft 0.18g: (a) third floor displace-
ment; (b) base shear.

ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997 139

 Fig. 11—Three-story model story displacements, Run Taft 0.35g: (a) first story; (b)
second story; (c) third story.

Fig. 12—Three-story model story shears, Run Taft 0.35g: (a) base shear; (b) second
story; (c) third story.

140 ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997

represented 8.8 percent of the total vertical load on the struc- source of damage to this particular GLD structure. The
ture, corresponding to 85 percent of the maximum calculated cracking pattern recorded after Run Taft 0.35g is shown in
model base shear capacity. Assuming viscous damping, the Fig. 13.
first mode damping ratio, expressed in Table 3 as a 2. P-Δ effect: The large flexibility of the tested skeleton
percentage of the critical damping, increased significantly structure with no frame in-fill walls resulted in a pronounced
during Run Taft 0.18g as new cracks developed. P-Δ effect. At the instant of maximum story drift, during Run
After the Taft 0.35g run, the model fundamental frequency Taft 0.18g, the sum of the column shears recorded by the
decreased to 1.65 Hz (25 percent reduction), indicating a 78 internal force transducers installed at their midheights was
percent stiffness reduction ([(2.2/1.65)2 – 1] × 100). No 27 percent higher than the base shear computed from the
significant change was detected in the damping ratio, story accelerations. This discrepancy was due to the fact that
suggesting that few new cracks developed during this run. the load cells could capture the vertical load component
The maximum base shear of 1.38 kips recorded during this run developed in the columns as produced by the side-sway of
represented 97 percent of the calculated base shear capacity. the structure, while the accelerometers on the story floors
Story shears and mode shapes recorded at the instant of could only record their horizontal acceleration (Fig. 14).
maximum base shear are shown in Table 4. It can be seen This phenomenon was observed in all subsequent runs.
that in spite of considerable reduction in the model stiffness, 3. Columns: During all seismic tests, it was noticed that
the mode shapes remained essentially unchanged for all the average measured shear force in interior columns was
three complete runs. Furthermore, except for the first low- much higher than that of exterior columns (Table 5). This
amplitude seismic test, the shear force distribution over the can be attributed to (a) the large axial force in interior
three stories remained the same for all subsequent runs. columns that delayed their cracking and consequently
The model collapsed during Run Taft 0.80g (after 7 sec) in increased their relative stiffness, and (b) the higher degree of
a soft-story mechanism in the first-story columns. The peak
base shear was only 3.3 percent higher than that measured in
the previous run at 0.35g peak ground acceleration. Failure Table 3—Summary of three-story model seismic
was initiated at one of the interior columns, followed by test results
failure of the remaining first-story columns. This failure Maximum Fundamental First mode
mode is consistent with the fact that interior columns are Top story base shear, frequency, damping ratio,
Test drift, percent kips Hz percent of ζcr
subjected to a higher axial force and consequently are less
Taft 0.05g 0.19 0.338 2.20 1.30
ductile than exterior columns. In the current test, the
Taft 0.18g 2.02 1.252 1.80 2.74
average static reaction of interior columns was equal to 2.61
Taft 0.35g 2.84 1.384 1.65 2.76
kips (0.3Ag f c′ ) while for exterior columns the average reac-
Taft 0.80g — 1.430 — —
tion was equal to 1.05 kips (0.12Ag f c′ ) (Reference 3).
Local behavior—
1. Cracking: Cracks were detected at the top and bottom Table 4—Mode shapes and shear distribution at
sections of the first and second-story columns, within a maximum base shear
distance equal to the column dimension of 1.5 in. (plastic
hinging region), after Run Taft 0.18g. These cracks were
localized and did not spread over the columns’ height even
after the Taft 0.35g run. No damage was observed in
beams, joint regions, or splice termination areas, indicating
that the nonseismic reinforcement details were not a critical

Fig. 13—Cracking pattern of three-story model after Run

Taft 0.35g.

ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997 141

restraint provided by the interior beams (from four sides of
the joint) as compared to that of exterior beams.
Column moment is plotted against axial force in the inter-
action curves shown in Fig. 15 for the first-story interior and
exterior columns with all measurements taken during Run Taft
0.35g. It can be seen that first-story interior columns [Fig. 15(a)
and (b)] yielded in the two directions, while exterior columns
[Fig. 15(c) and (d)] yielded only in the high axial force
direction, suggesting that their stiffness (and hence their ability
to attract more shear) is directly related to their axial force level.
A similar conclusion was reached by Abrams.7
4. Beams: Bending moments at the first-story longitudinal
beam critical sections were calculated using both the column
static reactions measured before seismic tests and the changes
in those reactions measured by the internal load cells during
each table excitation.
Time histories of these moments from Run Taft 0.35g are
shown in Fig. 16(a) to (f) for Sections B1 to B6 respectively.
Values of cracking and yielding moments calculated using
an effective tee-section width of span/4 = 6.75 in.8 for both
positive and negative bending are also shown on each plot.
Inspection of this set of curves along with visual inspection
of the beam critical sections indicates that no pullout of the
discontinuous positive beam reinforcement occurred during
this run. It can be seen from Fig. 16(a) to (f) that Sections B1
and B6 were subjected to a similar bending history and
reached their positive yield point once. Both sections did not
yield in the negative direction during the entire run.
Sections B2 and B5 were already cracked from self-
weight effects. During Run Taft 0.35g, the bending
moment at Section B2 was not enough to yield the beam
Table 5—First-story column shears at time of
maximum base shears (three-story building test3)
Exterior columns Interior column
average
shears, kips shears, kips
interior
Shear average
Test direction C1 C4 Average C2 C3 Average exterior
Taft Max. +ve 0.099 0.187 0.143 0.249 0.259 0.254 1.776
0.18g Max. –ve 0.176 0.085 0.130 0.265 0.225 0.245 1.885
Taft Max. +ve 0.104 0.198 0.151 0.281 0.294 0.288 1.901
0.35g Max. –ve 0.170 0.091 0.131 0.279 0.241 0.260 1.984
Fig. 14—Simplified computation of P-Δ effect in first-story columns of three-story model
during Run Taft 0.18g.
142
reinforcement in either direction. The response of Section
B5 was quite different: it cracked and yielded in both direc-
tions. Several reasons may have contributed to the difference
in response between Sections B2 and B5, among them (a)
accidental overstrength of Section B2 associated with the
difficulty of controlling the slab thickness, and (b) depen-
dence of the section moments on the change in the column
reactions, which may contain some errors.
Sections B3 and B4 were also cracked from self-weight
effects. Both sections did not yield in the negative direction
during Run Taft 0.35g. It can be seen that only Section B4
cracked and yielded in the positive direction once during
this run.
The high force level in the positive moment beam rein-
forcement, as they reached yield in many occasions
(Sections B1, B4, B5, and B6), in addition to the minor
cracking observed at the beam-column interface at their
level provide more evidence that these bars did not pull out
during this run.
5. Longitudinal frame bending moment: Fig. 17(a) and
(b) show the bending moments of the longitudinal frame
during Run Taft 0.35g at the time of maximum positive and
maximum negative base shear respectively. It can be seen
from both figures that the increase in the exterior column
axial force resulting from the overturning moment effect
produced increases in bending moments. This phenomenon
was observed to a lesser degree for the interior columns.
Beam moments at the interior joints were always negative
(except for Section B2); consequently, no pullout of
discontinuous positive beam reinforcement was detected.
Although the situation was different for exterior joints,
where positive moments were developed, it is believed that
positive beam reinforcement yielded at these regions
without pulling out.
ANALYTICAL RESULTS USING PROGRAM IDARC
The two tested models were analyzed using Program
IDARC (Inelastic Damage Analysis of Reinforced Concrete
Structures), developed at SUNY/Buffalo. The objective of
the analysis was to investigate the suitability of IDARC in
predicting the response of this type of building. The program
is based on macroconcrete elements in which a three-parameter
ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997
hysteresis model is used to describe the stiffness degradation 1.0 were used in the current study. Also, a damping ratio ζ of
(α parameter), strength deterioration (β parameter), and 2 percent of the critical damping ζcr was adopted. The effec-
pinching and/or slip behavior (γ parameter).9 Based on proto- tive tee-section width was taken equal to span/4 for beams in
type connection tests,9 values of α = 2.0, β = 0.05, and γ = both positive and negative moments. A full description of the

(a) (c)

(b) (d)

Fig. 15—Moment-normal force response, first-story columns, Run Taft 0.35g: (a) interior column bottom section; (b) inte-
rior column top section; (c) exterior column bottom section; (d) exterior column top section.

Fig. 16—Bending moments in first-story beams, Run Taft 0.35g: (a) Section B1; (b) Section B2; (c) Section B3; (d) Section B4;
(e) Section B5; (f) Section B6.

ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997 143

program, input data, and analysis results is given in Refer-
ences 2, 3, and 9. Due to space limitations, only sample
analytical results of the 3-story building are presented here.
The time history of the calculated base shear for the 3-story
model is plotted against the measured base shear during Run
Taft 0.35g in Fig. 18(a). It can be seen that the calculated
Fig. 17—Bending moments at maximum base shear, Run
Taft 0.35g (all moments in in.-kips): (a) bending moments at
maximum positive base shear (time = 1.86 sec); (b) bending
moments at maximum negative base shear (time = 3.36 sec).
Fig. 18—Computed versus measured response, Run Taft 0.35g: (a) base shear; (b)
third-story displacement.
144
base shear correlated reasonably well with the measured
shear and that both records were in phase during the entire
run, indicating that the change in the mode period due to
stiffness degradation was reasonably reflected in the analysis.
The calculated top story displacement during Run Taft
0.35g also correlated well with the measured values up to the
maximum positive value [Fig. 18(b)], after which the calcu-
lated displacements started to deviate slightly from the
measured ones.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The experiments presented in this paper are among the
very first to address the performance of gravity load design
(GLD) reinforced concrete buildings tested under realistic
seismic loading conditions. The results revealed many
aspects of the behavior of this important class of building
during earthquake loading.
Experimental evidence from the two tested model buildings
indicate that GLD reinforced concrete structures will experi-
ence significant reduction in lateral stiffness after the first few
cycles of a moderate earthquake. This reduction is mainly due
to (a) the lack of ductility caused by poor confinement, espe-
cially in the joint regions, and (b) incipient pullout of the
discontinuous positive beam reinforcement. The large model
flexibility associated with testing the skeleton structure only,
with no wall in-fill, resulted in a pronounced P-Δ effect (up to
27 percent of the measured base shear).
The data from both models indicate the domination of the
first mode of vibration in all seismic tests. The mode shape
was almost constant for all tests despite the significant
reduction in the models’ stiffness (increase in their funda-
mental period).
It was also found that each column’s share of the total
story shear is directly related to its axial force level. Interior
columns in the three-story building resisted about twice the
shear force acting on the exterior columns.
Most of the deformation, damage, and energy dissipation
of the two tested models occurred in their first-story
ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997
columns. No significant damage was observed in the beams,
at the splice locations, or in the joint panels. At failure,
plastic hinges developed in the columns (strong beam-weak
column behavior), producing a soft-story failure mode.
Based on the current experimental and analytical results,
the following conclusions may be drawn:
1. Although the reinforcement details typically used in
GLD reinforced concrete structures may form a potential
source of damage, they are probably not sufficient in them-
selves to develop a complete failure mechanism. Available
experimental evidence indicates that the lack of sufficient
strength of columns as compared to beams in typical GLD
buildings usually leads to a premature soft-story mechanism
before these details are subjected to significant demand.
2. GLD reinforced concrete buildings with no in-fill walls
may experience large lateral deformations during a moderate
earthquake, with deformations accentuated by substantial
P-Δ effects. The inclusion of the in-fill walls in GLD reinforced
concrete buildings is indeed an important area for additional
experimental and analytical investigation.
3. Lateral stiffness of columns is a function of their axial
force level. This observation imposes a limitation on the use
of many available elastic dynamic analysis programs, where
such effect is not reflected.
4. Accounting for the slab contribution to the beam nega-
tive moment flexural strength is a vital step in the assessment
of the performance of GLD reinforced concrete frames since
it has the potential of altering the relatively ductile strong
column-weak beam mechanism to a soft-story mechanism.
This will be true even when a reduction factor is applied to
positive beam flexural strength to account for the effect of
possible pullout of the discontinuous positive moment rein-
forcement in the beams.
6. Small-scale reinforced concrete models can be used as a
powerful tool in studying the seismic performance of complete
buildings or multimember structural subassemblies.
ACI Structural Journal/March-April 1997
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by the National Center for Earthquake Engi-
neering Research, with funding from the National Science Foundation, State
of New York, and industrial sponsors, under NCEER Grant No. ECE 86-
07591. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided by Tim
Bond, manager of the George Winter Laboratory, technicians Paul Jones,
Glenn Darling, and John Powers, and by undergraduate students Adam
Hoffman, Rebecca Frein, and William Druc.
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