Publication

Abstract : During strong earthquake shaking, stiffness irregularity along the height of building leads to undesirable effects, including localized lateral deformation and formation of undesirable collapse mechanisms in such locations. Assessing stiffness irregularity and taking corrective measures are critical in mitigating these undesirable effects. Seismic design codes recommend checks that use storey stiffness to identify stiffness irregularity, if any. Guidance should be provided to designers to capture this feature at the preliminary design stage itself. A simple method is proposed to estimate storey stiffness, which will help examine stiffness irregularity in multi-storey buildings; it uses results of lateral load analysis that is already available to designers at the design stage.