Simple Seismic Evaluation Methodology for Gravity-Designed Reinforced Concrete Building

Abstract

This paper presents a simple seismic evaluation method for reinforced concrete building constructed as beam-column rigid frame. The proposed method is intended for practicing engineers as guidance for seismic evaluation of existing buildings. The proposed seismic evaluation methodology consists of force check in terms of demand to capacity (DCR), reinforcement detailing check and failure mode investigation. The failure mode flowchart consists of load flowchart and yielding flowchart. The use of flowchart requires structural indices and DCR. The load flowchart is intended to check the failure mode of existing buildings under the code-specified earthquake load. The yielding flowchart is intended to check the failure mode when some members of the building yield. A case study is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the method. The applicability of the method is partly verified by experiment of beam-column joint conducted in the past.