Posts Tagged Reinforced Concrete
How Earthquakes affect Reinforced Concrete Buildings
Posted by Architect in Earthquake Engineering on June 15, 2010
A typical RC building is made of horizontal members (beams and slabs) and vertical members (columns and walls), and supported by foundations that rest on ground. The system comprising of RC frame. The RC frame participates in resting the earthquake forces. Earthquake shaking generates inertia forces in the building, which are proportional to the building mass. Since most of the building mass is present at floor levels, earthquake induced inertia forces primarily develop at the floor levels. These forces travel downwards – through slabs and beams to columns and walls, and then to foundations from where they are dispersed to ground. As inertia forces accumulate downwards from the top of the building, the columns and walls at lower storey experience higher earthquake- induced forces and are therefore designed to be stronger than those in storey above.

Floor Bends with he Beam but moves all columns at that level together