STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS
Selection of appropriate structural system for given building is important for its economy and safety. It is an important decision which is to be taken by a structural engineer. Small buildings like residential houses generally uses load bearing brick walls with reinforced concrete floor slabs. For taller buildings reinforced concrete frames in both principal directions are provided with brick walls used as filler walls. For still taller buildings, where horizontal loads are of great importance, frames with shear walls are provided to resist both the vertical and horizontal loads. Various structural systems commonly used in buildings are shown in Figure below
The
Reinforced Concrete Frame structures where the ground storey is left open
without any partition walls of either Masonry or, RC between the columns are
called Open Ground Storey buildings or, buildings on stilts. In this case it is
relatively flexible and weak in the ground storey. The presence of walls in the
upper storeys makes them much stiffer than the open ground storey. Thus they
move almost together as a single block. As the columns in the open storey are
not strong enough in resisting sideways shaking from the earthquake, they get
severely damaged, subsequently leading to collapse of the super structure.
Experience has shown that buildings on stilts do not Seismologyperform well in
earthquakes unless the column and beam connections on the ground floor have
been specially designed to withstand the shaking load.
No comments:
Post a Comment