Evaluation of Seismic Response of Irregular Buildings Subjected to Near-Field Earthquakes

This study deals with the evaluation of the seismic performance of irregular buildings by comparing various seismic responses of six types of building, namely regular building, setback building, stepped building, mass irregular building, stiffness irregular building, and building with floating columns which are constructed of Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) subjected to extreme earthquake loads. The nonlinear time history analysis (NTHA) method is carried out to obtain different seismic response parameters for all considered irregular and regular buildings. The structural response results are compared by applying real earthquake records of different near-field and Far-field earthquakes and were compared for four different seismic response parameters which include top storey displacement, inter-storey drift, top base shear, and pattern of plastic hinges formation. This research concludes that the storey displacement, storey drift, and top base shear is significantly less for stepped and setback buildings, and significantly high for mass irregular, stiffness irregular, and floating columns buildings as compared to a regular building. Stepped buildings yield less responses and high responses are yielded in the building with floating columns.