Investigating the effects of architectural design on structural characteristics and earthquake behavior of reinforced concrete buildings: L-shaped buildings

Fundamental principles of earthquake-resistant design are investigated. Within this context, the importance of earthquake-resistant architectural design is evaluated and some architectural practices closely associated with the seismic behavior of structural systems are presented. Regulations of Turkey Building Earthquake Code (TBEC) for earthquake-resistant design of structural systems are studied in detail and structural irregularities in plan and elevation are examined. Design decisions in the architectural design process are found to significantly influence fundamental criteria related to earthquake-resistant design of structural systems. In the numerical analysis part of the study, re-entrant corner irregularity (irregularity type A3) is particularly studied for L-shaped reinforced concrete buildings. Free vibration analyses of eight reinforced concrete L-shaped moment-resisting frame buildings having different a/L ratios are conducted. In these analyses, the floor diaphragms are modeled as rigid and semi-rigid. Mode Superposition Method is used for earthquake analysis of L-shaped building models and some of the maximum structural response quantities such as base shear coefficient, lateral displacement, and internal force component are presented. It is found that the a/L ratio has significant importance on structural characteristics and earthquake behavior of L-shaped buildings.