IRREGULARITIES IN BUILDING

CONFIGURATION
 REGULAR & IRREGULAR CONFIGURATION
• To perform well in an EQ, a building should possess 4 main
attributes
1. Simple & Regular configuration
2. Adequate lateral strength
3. Stiffness - Stiffness is the extent to which an object resists
deformation or deflection in response to an applied force
4. Ductility - Ductility describes the extent to which a material (or
structure) can undergo large deformations without failing. The
term is used in earthquake engineering to designate how well
a building will endure large lateral displacements imposed by
ground shaking.

Buildings having simple regular geometry and uniformly distributed

mass and stiffness in plan as well as in elevation, suffers much less
damage than buildings with irregular configuration.
A building shall be considered as irregular, if at
least one of the conditions that will be discussed
further is applicable

1. PLAN IRREGULARITY 2. VERTICAL

a) Torsion Irregularity IRREGULARITY
b) Re-entrant Corners a) Stiffness Irregularity
c) Diaphragm (Soft Storey)
discontinuity b) Mass Irregularity
d) Out-of-plane offsets c) Vertical Geometric
e) Non-parallel Irregularity
systems d) Discontinuity in
capacity (Weak
Storey)
 PLAN IRREGULARITY
• TORSIONAL IRREGULARITY – it is considered to exist when the
maximum storey drift is more than 1.2 times the average of the storey
drifts at the two ends of the structure
 PLAN IRREGULARITY
• RE ENTRANT CORNERS – when both projections of the structure
beyond a re-entrant corner are greater than 15% of the plan
dimension of the structure in the given direction
projection “a” > 0.15X and
projection “b” > 0.15Y
 PLAN IRREGULARITY
• DIAPHRAGM DISCONTINUITY– Diaphragms with
abrupt discontinuities or variations in stiffness,
including those having cut-out or open areas greater
than 50% of the gross enclosed diaphragm area.
 PLAN IRREGULARITY
• OUT-OF-PLANE OFFSETS– Discontinuities in a lateral
force resisting path, such as out-of-plane offsets of
vertical elements.
 PLAN IRREGULARITY
• NON PARALLEL SYSTEMS – The vertical elements resisting
the lateral force are not parallel to or symmetric about the
major orthogonal axes or the lateral force resisting
elements.
 VERTICAL IRREGULARITY
• STIFFNESS IRREGULARITY (SOFT STOREY)– a soft storey is the one in
which the lateral stiffness is less than 70% of that in the storey
above or less than 80% of the average lateral stiffness of the three
storeys above
 VERTICAL IRREGULARITY
• MASS IRREGULARITY – it shall be considered to exist where the
seismic weight of any storey is more than 200% of that of its
adjacent storey. The irregularity need not be considered in case of
roofs.
 VERTICAL IRREGULARITY
• VERTICAL GEOMETRIC IRREGULARITY– it shall be considered to exist
where the horizontal dimension of the lateral force resisting system
in any storey is more than 150% of that in its adjacent storey.
 VERTICAL IRREGULARITY
• DISCONTINUITY IN CAPACITY (WEAK STOREY)– it is
the one in which the storey lateral strength is less
than 80% of that in the storey above.