CE 636 - Design of Multi-Story Structures

T. B. Quimby
UAA School of Engineering

Introduction to Lateral Force

Resisting Systems
Basic Concepts
 The LFRS is used to resist forces resulting
from wind or seismic activity.
 Buildings are basically big cantilever beams.
They are supported on one end only and the
loads are perpendicular to the beam.
 As in a beam, buildings are designed for
strength (shear and flexure) and
serviceability (deflection).
Constraints

 Strength
 Shear
 Flexure
 Serviceability
 Deflection
 Spatial Requirements
Structural Systems for Cantilever
Beams
 Braced Frame (Vertical Truss)
 Moment Frame
 Infilled-Frame
 Shear Wall (~ solid beam)
 Tube systems
 Combinations of the above
Braced Frames

 Braced Frames are basically vertical truss systems.

 Almost exclusively steel or timber.
 Highly efficient use of material since forces are
primarily axial. Creates a laterally stiff building
with relatively little additional material.
 Has little or no effect on the design of the
horizontal floor system.
 Good for buildings of any height.
 Bracing may intrude on the spatial constraints.
 May be internal or external.
Types of Bracing

 Different types of bracing

 Single Diagonal
 Double Diagonal
 Chevron Bracing
 Story height knee bracing (eccentricity braced
frames
 May be single story and/or bay or may span
over multiple stories and/or bays
Bracing
Large Scale Bracing

 Multiple Floors
 Multiple Bays
Moment Frames
(AKA Rigid Frames)

 Columns and Girders joined by moment resisting

connections
 Lateral stiffness of the frame depends on the the flexural
stiffness of the beams, columns, and connections.
 Economical for buildings up to about 25 stories.
 Well suited for reinforced concrete construction due to
the inherent continuity in the joints.
 Design of floor system cannot be repetitive since the
beams forces are a function of the shear at the level in
addition to the normal gravity loads.
 Gravity loads also resisted by frame action.
Moment Frame Behavior
 Note the bending in the typical beam,
column and joint.
Infilled Frames
 Common in many countries.
 Used for buildings up to 30 stories.
 Steel or concrete frame infilled with concrete or
masonry.
 Infill behaves as a strut in compression.
 Tension contribution is ignored.
 Due to random nature of masonry infill, it is difficult
to predict the stiffness and strength of this system.
 No method of analyzing infilled frames has gained
general acceptance.
Infilled Frames
Shear Walls

 Generally constructed with concrete, masonry, or

plywood. Sometimes steel.
 Shear walls have high in-plane stiffness and
strength.
 Well suited for tall buildings up to about 35 stories.
 Shear walls may intrude on the spatial constraints.
Best suited to residential and hotel construction.
 Can be used around elevator and/or stair cores.
Shear Wall Building
Coupled Shear Walls

 Special case of shear walls.

 Two or more shear walls in-plane, coupled
with a stiff beam or slab at each level.
 Tends to behave like a moment frame system
with very stiff columns.
 The coupling reduces lateral deflections.
 Forces in the coupling elements can be quite
large.
Coupled Shear Wall Building

 Free body of left shear wall has additional

reactions from the coupling members.
Wall-Frame Structures

 Combination of shear walls and rigid frames or

combination of braced and rigid frames.
 Shear walls and braced frames tend to deflect in
a flexural mode while the rigid frames tend to
deflect in a shear mode.
 In a wall-frame structure, both the shear walls
and rigid frames are constrained to act together,
resulting in a stiffer and stronger structure.
 Good for structures in the 40-60 story range.
Wall-Frame Building
Tube Systems
 The basic idea is to make a rectangular tube out the the
perimeter of the building.
 The tube is made up of closely spaced columns connected by
stiff spandrel beams creating very stiff moment frames.
 Frames parallel to direction of force act like webs to carry the
shear.
 Frames perpendicular to the direction of force act as flanges.
Flange forces are not uniform.
 Best applied to rectangular or circular plans.
 Suitable for both steel and concrete.
 Use for buildings of 40 stories or more.
 Frames are repetitive and easily constructed.
Tube System

 Gravity Loads taken by

frames and interior
columns.
 Aesthetically, the
system gets mixed
reviews because of the
small windows and the
repetition.
Tube Variations
 Tube-in-Tube or Hull-Core
 Inner tube is usually around an elevator or service core and
can be made very stiff with shear walls or braced frames.
 Bundled Tubes
 Introduces additional “web frames” which reduces shear lag
which makes flanges more efficient.
 Allows for more architectural variation.
 Sears Tower, Chicago
 Braced-Tube
 Utilizes a large scaled braced frame in place of rigid frames
 Allows for wider columns spacing and smaller spandrels.
Outrigger-Braced Structures

 Structural “depth” is increased (i.e. the

moment of inertia of the structure is
increased)
 Shear strength is unchanged.
 Utilizes a braced core with stiff outriggers to
mobilized outer columns in tension and
compression.
 4 to 5 outriggers appear to be the economical
limit.
Outrigger-Braced Structures

 Under Lateral Loads:

 Columns on one side are
in tension
 Columns on other side
are in compression.
Suspended Structures
 Used primarily to achieve some architectural purpose.
 Floor are hung from a truss on an upper level
 Tension members can be smaller than columns would
be in same place.
 Accumulated lengthening of tension members may
cause extreme deflection problems at lowest hung
floor. This can be controlled by hanging 10 or less floors
from a single truss.
 Limited to “shorter” structures since structural depth is
small at base, making lateral deflections large.
 There are several variations on the theme.
Suspended Structures

 Suspension does little to help the LFRS.

Core Structures

 Core carries all gravity and lateral forces.

 Core may be braced frame or shear wall.
 Floors are cantilevered off of the core.
 Creates a column free interior.
 Building width is limited by capabilities of the
cantilever.
 Building height limited by stiffness of core.
 Structurally inefficient.
Space Structures

 Three dimensional triangulated frame.

 Highly efficient and relatively light weight.
 Bank of China building in Hong Kong is a
classic example.
 Ingenuity required to get the gravity and
lateral loads from the floors into the space
frame.
Hybrid Structures

 Combinations of the various types of systems.

 There are almost limitless combinations.
 May be necessary to achieve architectural
goals. (“Postmodern” architecture
intentionally tries to get away from simple
prismatic building shapes.)
 The development of large scale computer
based analysis has made design of odd shapes
possible.