Evaluation of seismic strengthening techniques for non-ductile soft-story RC frame

摘要

Open ground story (OGS) reinforced concrete (RC) buildings are vulnerable to the complete collapse or severe damages under seismic actions. This study investigates the effectiveness of four different strengthening techniques representing the local and global modifications to improve the seismic performance of a non-ductile RC OGS frame. Steel caging and concrete jacketing methods of column strengthening are considered as the local modification techniques, whereas steel bracing and RC shear wall systems are selected as the global strengthening techniques in this study. Performance-based plastic design (PBPD) approach relying on energy-balance concept has been adopted to determine the required design force demand on the strengthening elements. Nonlinear static and dynamic analyses are carried out on the numerical models of study frames to assess the effectiveness of selected strengthening techniques in improving the seismic performance of OGS frame.. Strengthening techniques based on steel braces and RC shear wall significantly reduced the peak interstory drift response of the OGS frame. However, the peak floor acceleration of these strengthened frames is amplified by more than 2.5 times as compared to that of unstrengthened frame. Steel caging technique of column strengthening resulted in a reasonable reduction in the peak interstory drift response without substantial amplification in peak floor acceleration of the OSG frame.