THE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF CONSTRUCTIONS IN BUCHAREST

MASTER PROGRAM
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

REHABILITATION OF STRUCTURES
PROF. DR. ENG. D. STOICA

FAILURE OF SOFT-STORY CONCRETE BUILDING UNDER SEVERE EARTHQUAKE LOADS

RESEARCHER. KAMEL AHMED

Contents
A. THE DEFINITION OF THE SOFT-STORY BUILDING. ........................................................................................................ 3
B. APPROXIMATE APPROACH TO DETERMINE THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOFT-STORY. ..................................................... 3
C. EXAMPLES OF THE SOFT-STORY BUILDINGS. ............................................................................................................... 3
D. SOFT-STORY FAILURE MECHANISM ............................................................................................................................. 3
E. DIFFERENT SOFT-STORY ARRANGEMENT..................................................................................................................... 4
F. STRUCTURAL BEHAVIOR OF SOFT STOREY. .................................................................................................................. 4
G. IMPROVEMENT IN DESIGN STRATEGIES. ..................................................................................................................... 6
H. REHABILITATION OF EXISTING SOFT STORY BUILDINGS. ............................................................................................. 6
I. REFERENCES. ................................................................................................................................................................. 7
A. THE DEFINITION OF THE SOFT-STORY BUILDING.
The soft story building is a multi-story building in which one or more stories have large windows
and doors as the commercial spaces or garages, or openings and D-shapes in the shear walls that
should be taken into consideration in earthquake engineering design.

B. APPROXIMATE APPROACH TO DETERMINE THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOFT-STORY.

Buildings are classified as having a soft-story if that level is less stiff than 70% of the floor
immediately above it or as less than 80% of the average stiffness of the above three floors.

C. EXAMPLES OF THE SOFT-STORY BUILDINGS.

Figure (1) – Soft-Story Formation

D. SOFT-STORY FAILURE MECHANISM

During an earthquake motion, the soft story behavior is based on the criteria that the ground motion
will look for all possible weakness in the structure. This weakness may be a sharp variation in the
stiffness, ductility or in the strength parameters. These variations result in the poor distribution of
masses throughout the floor, which itself is undesirable.

Many structural damages recorded due to earthquake had a major problem of change in stiffness and
strength along their vertical configuration. It is not only essential to have symmetry along the horizontal
direction, i.e. in the plan, but also in the vertical direction. This is a factor that assures lateral stiffness.
Abrupt changes in the vertical plan should be avoided to the maximum.
E. DIFFERENT SOFT-STORY ARRANGEMENT.
The soft story configuration is possible in by different arrangement in the building. It is illustrated in
figure-1. One such arrangement is the combination of open ground floor and the masonry fill at other
top floors. This arrangement is shown in figure 2(a).
The presence of walls in upper stories makes them much stiffer compared to the bottom stories. This
makes the upper stories to behave like a single block. Under dynamic forces, most of the horizontal
displacement take place at the bottom soft story alone.
This irregularity if is minor in nature, the system will resist the seismic forces, as per the seismic codes.
For this, it is essential to give specially characterized strength for that story to resist the dynamic force,
by the structural engineer. This is carried out by extra ductile detailing and additional strength giving
materials.
Another arrangement is the provision of longer columns at the bottom floor and another with smaller
ones, as shown in figure 2(b). Figure 2(c) shows a soft story arrangement where the columns are
arranged in a discontinuous manner. This itself have problems in a discontinuity in the load transfer,
which becomes severe under the seismic forces.

Figure (2) – Soft-story Arrangement.

F. STRUCTURAL BEHAVIOR OF SOFT STOREY.

When it comes to vertical symmetry i.e. the form of soft story construction, rather than the energy
absorption by the reinforcing bars or the steel sections in their plastic zones, there is higher energy
concentration at the soft story levels. This would result in serious damage to those columns that are in
that zone.
Once it has damaged the members at the soft story, it does not have a nature to move on and damage
the other members. Instead, they apply their intense pressure on the same story. Therefore, we see
most of the structure above the soft story remain undamaged
The following figure 3 will show up the structural behavior and failure for the soft-story buildings.
G. IMPROVEMENT IN DESIGN STRATEGIES.
The design must be proceeded by determining the forces in each of the structural element ie the
columns, beams and the shear walls, by neglecting the consideration of masonry walls or assume the
building to be as bare frame during the calculation.
When it comes to a new plan for building construction, it is advised to avoid large decrease or increase
of stiffness throughout the building. It is recommended to construct walls at the bottom floor also. The
discontinuity in the wall construction must be minimized in the construction by the designers.
In design process, a special care need to be considered for the drifts and drift limits of the floors, since
through the drift results we can identify the soft story and intervene to make a solution to avoid the soft-
story mechanism.

H. REHABILITATION OF EXISTING SOFT STORY BUILDINGS.

When it comes to the rehabilitation or improvement of existing soft story buildings, additional
strengthening construction must be implemented under the assistance of qualified structural engineers,
to prevent the building collapse from strong ground motion.
One of the methods is to fill up all the possible open story that brings the discontinuity by the masonry
wall like the above floors.
The shear wall at plan positions, that is concluded based on analysis is another remedy for rehabilitation,
which can improve the stiffness and resistance towards ground motion. When the open ground floor is
essential and cannot be compromised, inside infill walls can be provided as shown in the below plan.
I. REFERENCES.
- Analysis the Behavior of Building with Different Soft Story - IJSTE - International Journal of Science Technology
& Engineering | Volume 2 | Issue 12 | June 2016.
- ACI Committee 318, ACI, Structural Building Code and Commentary, American Concrete Institute, 2002.
- https://theconstructor.org/earthquake/soft-storey-buildings-earthquakes/15694/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_story_building