Shaking table tests of a full‐scale 10‐story reinforced‐concrete building (2015). Phase II: Seismic resisting system

Abstract

AbstractA 10‐story reinforced‐concrete (RC) building was subjected to a shaking table test using E‐Defense, the largest three‐dimensional earthquake simulator in the world, to estimate the effects of a flexible foundation and seismic response of a mid‐rise building. Two structural systems with different base supporting conditions were adopted for two phases of tests for comparative purposes: the first system was free‐standing with base sliding and uplifting, and the second was a conventional RC seismic resisting system with a fixed base. This paper mainly reports the test results for the conventional RC seismic resisting system with a fixed base, which comprises a moment‐resisting frame system in the longitudinal direction and a frame system with multistory shear walls in the transverse direction. The objective of this research was to confirm the seismic capacity of a mid‐rise building designed in accordance with current Japanese building standards and guidelines. Even though the story drift ratio exceeded 3% under extreme motion exceeding the design earthquake, the structure remained stable throughout the tests, satisfying the design concept of collapse prevention performance, whereas relatively severe damage was observed in the beam–column joints. Crack observations indicated massive damage sustained by the beam–column joints. The measured shear deformations at the beam–column joints accounted for more than half of the inter‐story drift at the peak response.