The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Contribution of a floor system to the dynamic characteristics of reinforced concrete buildings

Malik, Lincoln E.; Bertero, Vitelmo V.

UCB/EERC-76/30, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1976-12, 254 pages (515/M22/1976)

A practicable and sufficiently accurate stiffness matrix method for estimating the contribution of a floor system to the overall elastic stiffness of moment-resisting space frames is developed. The floor system consists of a 2-way reinforced concrete slab supported on beams between columns. This method is achieved by performing extensive parametric finite element analyses to identify the main parameters affecting and, therefore, controlling the stiffness of individual floor panels of the floor system. The accuracy and practicability of the stiffness matrix method as well as of those methods currently in use, such as the ACI 318-71 equivalent frame method and an effective slab width method for predicting the lateral stiffness of moment-resisting space frames, are evaluated by applying all these methods to 27 single-story, single-panel structures and one single-story, multi-panel structure. The results are compared with those from analyses using a finite element method. These methods, with the exception of the finite element method, are also used to predict the dynamic response of two multistory buildings.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-76-30.pdf (16 MB)