• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.2 no.4
• /
• pp.285-291
• /
• 2013

This paper proposes a framework for understanding the energy consumption differences between tall and low-rise buildings. Energy usage data from 706 office buildings in New York illustrates expected correlations from the framework. Notable correlations include: taller buildings tend to use more energy until a plateau at 30~39 floors; tall buildings in Manhattan use 20% more energy than low-rise buildings in Manhattan, while tall buildings outside Manhattan use 4% more energy than low-rise buildings outside Manhattan. Additional correlations are discussed, among which is the trend that the Energy Star program in New York City assigns higher ratings to tall buildings with higher EUIs than low-rise buildings with the same EUI. Since Energy Star is based on regressions of existing buildings, the Energy Star ratings suggest taller buildings have higher EUIs than shorter buildings, which is confirmed by the New York City energy benchmarking data.

• Architectural research
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.17-25
• /
• 2018

Countermeasures against earthquake disasters such as the seismic capacity evaluation and/or retrofit schemes of buildings, especially existing low-rise reinforced concrete buildings, have not been fully performed since Korea had not experienced many destructive earthquakes in the past. However, due to more than 1200 earthquakes with low or moderate intensity in the off-coastal and inland of Korea during the past 20 years, and due to the recent moderate earthquakes in Korea, such as the 2016 Gyeongju Earthquake with M=5.8 and the 2017 Pohang Earthquake with M=5.4, the importance of the future earthquake preparedness measures is highly recognized in Korea. The main objective of this study is to provide the basic information regarding seismic capacities of existing low-rise reinforced concrete buildings in Korea. In this paper, seismic capacities of 14 existing low-rise reinforced concrete public buildings in Korea are evaluated based on the Japanese Standard for Evaluation of Seismic Capacity of Existing Reinforced Concrete Buildings. Seismic capacities between existing buildings in Korea and those in Japan is compared, and the relationship of seismic vulnerability of Korean buildings and Japanese buildings damaged due to severe earthquakes are also discussed. Results indicated that Korean existing low-rise reinforced concrete buildings have a narrow distribution of seismic capacities and they are relatively lower than Japanese buildings, and are also expected to have severe damage under the earthquake intensity level experienced in Japan. It should be noted from the research results that the high ductility in Korean existing low-rise buildings obtained from the Japanese Standard may be overestimated, because most buildings investigated herein have the hoop spacing wider than 30 cm. In the future, the modification of strength and ductility indices in the Japanese Standard to propose the seismic capacity evaluation method of Korean buildings is most needed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.483-503
• /
• 2016

This study aims to evaluate seismic performance of existing low and mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings by comparing their displacement capacities and displacement demands under selected ground motions experienced in Turkey as well as demand spectrum provided in 2007 Turkish Earthquake Code for design earthquake with 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years for soil class Z3. It should be noted that typical residential buildings are designed according to demand spectrum of 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years. Three RC building sets as 2-, 4- and 7-story, are selected to represent reference low-and mid-rise buildings located in the high seismicity region of Turkey. The selected buildings are typical beam-column RC frame buildings with no shear walls. The outcomes of detailed field and archive investigation including approximately 500 real residential RC buildings established building models to reflect existing building stock. Total of 72 3-D building models are constructed from the reference buildings to include the effects of some properties such as structural irregularities, concrete strength, seismic codes, structural deficiencies, transverse reinforcement detailing, and number of story on seismic performance of low and mid-rise RC buildings. Capacity curves of building sets are obtained by nonlinear static analyses conducted in two principal directions, resulting in 144 models. The inelastic dynamic characteristics are represented by "equivalent" Single-Degree-of- Freedom (ESDOF) systems using obtained capacity curves of buildings. Nonlinear time history analysis is used to estimate displacement demands of representative building models idealized with (ESDOF) systems subjected to the selected ground motion records from past earthquakes in Turkey. The results show that the significant number of pre-modern code 4- and 7-story buildings exceeds LS performance level while the modern code 4- and 7-story buildings have better performances. The findings obviously indicate the existence of destructive earthquakes especially for 4- and 7-story buildings. Significant improvements in the performance of the buildings per modern code are also obvious in the study. Almost one third of pre-modern code buildings is exceeding LS level during records in the past earthquakes. This observation also supports the building damages experienced in the past earthquake events in Turkey.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
• /
• v.25 no.4_2
• /
• pp.611-619
• /
• 2022

In this study, the seismic performance of low - rise piloti buildings with concentric core (shear wall) position is analysed and reviewed based on KDS 41. The prototype is selected among the constructed low - rise piloti buildings with concentric core designed based on KBC 2005 which was used for many low - rise piloti buildings construction. The seismic performance of the building shows plastic behavior in X-direction and elastic behavior in Y-direction. The inter-story drift is lager than that of concentric core case and is under the maximum allowed drift ratio. The displacement ratio of first story is much lager the that of upper stories, and the frame structure in the first story is evaluated as vulnerable to lateral force. Therefore, low - rise piloti buildings with concentric core need the diminishment of lateral displacement and reinforcement of lateral resistance capacity in seismic design and seismic retrofit.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.395-402
• /
• 2018

Floor location of adjacent buildings may be different in terms of height elevation, and thus, the slab may hit on the columns of adjacent insufficiently separated buildings during severe ground motions. Such impacts, often referred to as mid-column pounding, can be catastrophic. Substantial pounding damage or even total collapse of structures was often observed in large amount of adjacent low rise buildings. The research on the mid-column pounding between low rise buildings is in urgency need. In present study, the responses of two adjacent low rise buildings with unequal heights and different dynamic properties have been analyzed. Parametric studies have also been conducted to assess the influence of story height difference, gap distance and input direction of ground motion on the effect of structural pounding response. Another emphasis of this study is to analyze the near-fault effect, which is important for the structures located in the near-fault area. The analysis results show that collisions exhibit significant influence on the local shear force response of the column suffering impact. Because of asymmetric configuration of systems, the structural seismic behavior is distinct by varying the incident directions of the ground motions. Results also show that near-fault earthquakes induced ground motions can cause more significant effect on the pounding responses.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.88 no.3
• /
• pp.209-220
• /
• 2023

This study investigates the effectiveness of tuned mass dampers (TMDs) in controlling vibrations in low-rise reinforced concrete buildings. It examines both linear and nonlinear behaviors of concrete structures subjected to strong ground motions from the PEER database. The research follows the ASCE 7-16 provisions to model structural nonlinearity. Additionally, the study explores the effect of varying TMD mass ratios on the performance of these systems in real-world conditions. The findings emphasize the importance of accounting for structural nonlinearity in low-rise buildings, highlighting its significant influence on the controlled response under severe seismic excitations. The study suggests including nonlinear analysis in seismic design practices and recommends customizing TMD designs to optimize vibration control. These recommendations have practical implications for enhancing the safety and effectiveness of seismic design practices for low-rise buildings.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.49-58
• /
• 2022

The 2017 Pohang earthquake caused severe damage to low-rise piloti buildings. The damage was caused mainly by column shear failure, and some core walls were as well. The damaged piloti buildings in Pohang City could be relieved if they were designed correctly according to the standards at that time. However, the post-earthquake investigation revealed design, construction, and permission problems. To solve the problems, the Piloti Building Structure Design Guidelines that include strict specifications were published in 2018. Separately, KDS 41 17 00, the seismic design standard for buildings, was enacted in 2019 and it included the guideline contents. Therefore, at least after the publication of the guidelines, piloti buildings, designed by the standard and guidelines, can be expected to possess better seismic performance than existing piloti buildings. To confirm this, the probability of exceedance for several damage state thresholds was estimated for existing and designed piloti buildings. As a result, the probability of damage of designed piloti buildings was very low compared to existing ones. Consequently, it was confirmed that the guideline and standard adequately supplement the structural fragility of existing piloti buildings.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
• /
• 2017.10a
• /
• pp.14-23
• /
• 2017

In high-density high-rise cities such as Hong Kong, buildings account for nearly 90% of energy consumption and 61% of carbon emissions. Therefore, it is important to study the design of buildings, especially high-rise buildings, to achieve lower carbon emissions in the city. The carbon emissions of a building consist of embodied carbon from the production of construction materials and operational carbon from energy consumption during daily operation (e.g., air-conditioning and lighting). An integrated analysis of both types of carbon emissions can strengthen the design of low carbon buildings, but most of the previous studies concentrated mainly on either embodied or operational carbon. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to develop a holistic methodology framework considering both embodied and operational carbon, in order to enhance the sustainable design of low carbon high-rise buildings. The framework will be based on the building information modeling (BIM) technology because BIM can be integrated with simulation systems and digital models of different disciplines, thereby enabling a holistic design and assessment of low carbon buildings. Structural analysis program is first coupled with BIM to validate the structural performance of a building design. The amounts of construction materials and embodied carbon are then quantified by a BIM-based program using the Dynamo programming interface. Operational carbon is quantified by energy simulation software based on the green building extensible Markup Language (gbXML) file from BIM. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) will be applied to analyze the ambient wind effect on indoor temperature and operational carbon. The BIM-based framework serves as a decision support tool to compare and explore more environmentally-sustainable design options to help reduce the carbon emissions in buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.383-393
• /
• 2018

In this study, seismic performance of low and medium-rise RC buildings with wide-beam and ribbed-slab were evaluated numerically. Moment resisting systems consisting of moment and dual frame were selected as structural system of the buildings. Sufficiency of moment resisting wide-beam frames designed with high ductility requirements were evaluated. Upon necessity frames were stiffen with shear-walls. The buildings were designed in accordance with the Turkish Earthquake Code (TEC 2007) and were evaluated by using the strain-based nonlinear static method specified in TEC. Second order (P-delta) effects on the lateral load capacity of the buildings were also assessed in the study. The results indicated that the predicted seismic performances were achieved for the low-rise (4-story) building with the high ductility requirements. However, the moment resisting frame with high ductility was not adequate for the medium-rise building. Addition of sufficient amount of shear-walls to the system proved to be efficient way of providing the target performance of structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.41 no.4
• /
• pp.479-494
• /
• 2012

This study explores a coefficient-based seismic capacity assessment method with a special emphasis on low-rise masonry in-filled (MI) reinforced concrete (RC) buildings subjected to earthquake motion. The coefficient-based method without requiring any complicated finite element analysis is a simplified procedure to assess the maximum spectral acceleration capacity of buildings. This paper first compares the fundamental periods of MI RC structures obtained, respectively, from experimental period data and empirical period-height formulas. The coefficient-based method for low-rise masonry buildings is then calibrated by the published experimental results obtained from shaking table tests. The comparison of the experimental and estimated results indicates that the simplified coefficient-based method can provide good approximations of the maximum spectral accelerations at peak loads of the low-rise masonry reinforced concrete buildings if a proper set of drift factors and initial fundamental vibration periods of structures are used.