• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.219-222
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• 2005

Many RC building structures of multiple uses constructed in Korea have the irregularities of torsion and soft story at bottom stories. A typical irregular building was selected as prototype and shaking table tests were performed to investigate the seismic performance of this building. The objective of this study is to evaluate the correlation between the experimental and analytical responses of this irregular building structure subjected to the earthquake excitation by using OpenSees(Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation). The results of analyses simulate well the behavior of the building having torsional irregularity and weak stories.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.5
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• pp.699-709
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• 2020

Torsional irregularity is one of the most probable types of horizontal irregularity and existence of this irregularity in most of the structural loading codes is determined by calculating the ratio of the maximum to the average story drift. No specific method has been previously recommended by the codes to calculate the mentioned ratio in the response spectrum analyses. In the current investigation, nine steel building structures with different plan layouts and number of stories have been analyzed and designed in order to evaluate the efficiency of three methods for calculating the ratio of the maximum to the average story drift in the response spectrum analyses. It should be noted that one of these methods is the approach used by current version of ETABS software andother ones are proposed in this paper. The obtained results using the proposed methods are compared with the time history analysis results. The comparisons show that one of these methods underestimates the mentioned ratio in all studied models, however, the other two methods have shown similar results. It is also found that the plan layouts and irregularities can affect how these methods estimate the ratios compared to those obtained by the time history analysis. Generally, it can be concluded that all of these methods can properly predict the ratio with acceptable errors.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.237-243
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• 2013

In the Korean Building Code (KBC), the Design Eccentricity involves the torsional amplification factor (TAF), and the inherent and accidental eccentricities. When a structure of less than 6-stories and assigned to seismic design category C or D is designed using equivalent static analysis method, both KBC-2006 and KBC-2009 use the TAF but apply different calculation methods for the of design eccentricity. The design eccentricity in KBC-2006 is calculated by multiplying the sum of inherent eccentricity and accidental eccentricity at each level by a TAF but that in KBC-2009 is calculated by multiplying only the accidental eccentricity by a TAF. In this paper, the damage indices of a building with planar structural irregularity designed by different design eccentricities are compared and the relationship between the earthquake damage and design eccentricity of the building is evaluated. On the basis of this study, the increment of design eccentricity results in the decrement of final eccentricity and global damage index of structure. It is observed that design eccentricity in KBC-2006 reduces the vulnerability of torsional irregular building compared to design eccentricity in KBC-2009.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.321-334
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• 2022

Irregularity in plan shape is very common for any type of building as it enhances better air ventilation for the inhabitants. Systematic opening at the middle of the facades makes the appearance of the building plan as a butterfly one. The primary focus of this study is to forecast the force, moment and torsional coefficient of a butterfly plan shaped tall building. Initially, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) study is done on the building model based on Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) k-epsilon turbulence model. Fifty random cases of irregularity and angle of attack (AOA) are selected, and the results from these cases are utilised for developing the surrogate models. Parametric equations are predicted for all these aerodynamic coefficients, and the training of these outcomes are also done for developing Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). After achieving the target acceptance criteria, the observed results are compared with the primary CFD data. Both parametric equations and ANN matched very well with the obtained data. The results are further utilised for discussing the effects of irregularity on the most critical wind condition.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.437-448
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• 2017

Soft or extreme soft storeys in multi-storied buildings cause localized damage (and even collapse) during strong earthquake shaking. The presence of such soft or extremely soft storey is identified through provisions of vertical stiffness irregularity in seismic design codes. Identification of the irregularity in a building requires estimation of lateral translational stiffness of each storey. Estimation of lateral translational stiffness can be an arduous task. A simple procedure is presented to estimate storey stiffness using only properties of fundamental lateral translational mode of oscillation (namely natural period and associated mode shape), which are readily available to designers at the end of analysis stage. In addition, simplified analytical expressions are provided towards identifying stiffness irregularity. Results of linear elastic time-history analyses indicate that the proposed procedure captures the irregularity in storey stiffness in both low- and mid-rise buildings.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.405-417
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• 2014

The poor seismic performance of reinforced concrete buildings during the latest earthquakes has become a serious issue in the building industry in Turkey. This case, designing new buildings without structural irregularities against earthquake loads reveals to be quite significant. This study mainly is focused on the effects of different torsional irregularities on construction costs and earthquakes performance of reinforced concrete buildings. In that respect, structural torsional irregularities are investigated based on the Turkish Earthquake Code. The study consists of major eight main parametric models. In this models consist of totally 49 models together with the variations in the number of storey. With this purpose, the earthquake performances and construction costs (especially steel quantities) of reinforced concrete buildings which having different structural torsional irregularities were obtained with the help of Sta4-CAD program. Each model has been analyzed by both the methods of equivalent earthquake loading and dynamic analysis. The obtained results reveal that the model-1 which has lower torsional irregularity coefficient shows the best earthquake performance owing to its regular plan geometry. Also, economical comparisons on costs of the torsional irregularity are performed, and results-recommendations are given.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.131-141
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• 2019

Irregular distribution of mass in elevation is regarded as a structural irregularity by which the modes with high energy levels are excited and in addition, it can lead the structure to withstanding concentration of nonlinear deformations and consequently, suffer from unpredictable local or global damages. Accordingly, with respect to the lack of knowledge and insight towards the performance of concrete buildings making use of tunnel-form structural system in seismic events, it is of utmost significance to assess seismic vulnerability of such structures involved in vertical mass irregularity. To resolve such a crucial drawback, this papers aims to seismically assess vulnerability of RC tunnel-form buildings considering effects of irregular mass distribution. The results indicate that modal responses are not affected by building's height and patterns of mass distribution in elevation. Moreover, there was no considerable effect observed on the performance levels under DBE and MCE hazard scenarios within different patterns of irregular mass distribution. In conclusion, it appears that necessarily of vertical regularity for tunnel-form buildings, is somehow drastic and conservative at least for the buildings and irregularity patterns studied herein.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.103-111
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• 2018

This study examines the seismic failure of RC low-rise building structures having irregularities at the ground story during the 15 November 2017 Pohang, Korea, earthquake, $M_w=5.4$, which is the second strongest since the government began monitoring them in 1978 in South Korea. Some 2,000 private houses were damaged or destroyed in this earthquake. Particularly, serious damage to the piloti story of RC low-rise residential building structures of fewer than five stories was observed within 3 km of the epicenter with brittle shear failure of columns and walls due to severe torsional behavior. Buildings below six stories constructed before 2005 did not have to comply with seismic design requirements, so confinement detailing of columns and walls also led to inadequate performance. However, some buildings constructed after 2005 were damaged at the flexible side of the piloti story due to the high torsional irregularity. Based on these results, this study focuses on the problems of the seismic torsion design approach in current building codes.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.353-373
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• 2015

In this paper, the effects of different types of irregularity along the height on the seismic responses of moment resisting frames are investigated using nonlinear dynamic analysis. Furthermore, the applicability of consecutive modal pushover (CMP) procedure for computing the seismic demands of vertically irregular frames is studied and the advantages and limitations of the procedure are elaborated. For this purpose, a special moment resisting steel frame of 10-storey height was selected as reference regular frame for which the effect of higher modes is important. Forty vertically irregular frames with stiffness, strength, combined-stiffness-and-strength and mass irregularities are created by applying two modification factors (MF=2 and 4) in four different locations along the height of the reference frame. Seismic demands of irregular frames are computed by using the nonlinear response history analysis (NL-RHA) and CMP procedure. Modal pushover analysis (MPA) method is also carried out for the sake of comparison. The effect of different types of irregularity along the height on the seismic demands of vertically irregular frames is investigated by studying the results obtained from the NL-RHA. To demonstrate the accuracy of the enhanced pushover analysis methods, the results derived from the CMP and MPA are compared with those obtained by benchmark solution, i.e., NL-RHA. The results show that the CMP and MPA methods can accurately compute the seismic demands of vertically irregular buildings. The methods may be, however, less accurate especially in estimating plastic hinge rotations for weak or weak-and-soft top and middle storeys of vertically irregular frames.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.517-539
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• 2011

This paper presents the seismic responses of a 1:5-scale five-story reinforced concrete building model, which represents a residential apartment building that has a high irregularity of weak story, soft story, and torsion simultaneously at the ground story. The model was subjected to a series of uni- and bi-directional earthquake simulation tests. Analysis of the test results leads to the following conclusions: (1) The model survived the table excitations simulating the design earthquake with the PGA of 0.187 g without any significant damages, though it was not designed against earthquakes; (2) The fundamental mode was the torsion mode. The second and third orthogonal translational modes acted independently while the torsion mode showed a strong correlation with the predominant translational mode; (3) After a significant excursion into inelastic behavior, this correlation disappeared and the maximum torsion and torsion deformation remained almost constant regardless of the intensity of the two orthogonal excitations; And, (4) the lateral resistance and stiffness of the critical columns and wall increased or decreased significantly with the large variation of acting axial forces caused by the high bi-directional overturning moments and rocking phenomena under the bi-directional excitations.