Seismic performance assessment of soft storey buildings based on results from field testing

Soft storey buildings can be commonly found in both developed and developing countries all over the world. These types of structures behave as inverted pendulum and are observed to be vulnerable in an earthquake, because the rigid upper stories have limited displacement capacity thus leaving the columns on the ground floor to deform and absorb most of the energy. A research project has been undertaken by Swinburne University of Technology in collaboration with The University of Melbourne, Australia which involves experimental field testing of a four-storey high soft storey building in Carlton (an inner suburb of Melbourne). The aim of this project is to study the ultimate behaviour of soft-storey buildings when subject to push-over loading. Nonlinear time history analyses (THA) have been undertaken to study the seismic response behavioral trends of soft storey buildings. Data obtained from the experimental field studies on the force-displacement behaviour of the building has been used as input into the time-history analyses. The aim of the investigation is to develop an effective, representative seismic performance assessment procedure for soft storey buildings based on results from field testing of real buildings.