Seismic Assessment of An Existing 20-Floor Concrete Shear Wall Building in Beijing According To European Standards

Abstract eng:
In the framework of a publicly-funded program for the seismic assessment of Swiss federal properties in foreign countries, an existing 20-floor concrete shear wall building constructed in the 1990s in Beijing, China, was assessed regarding its seismic safety. This building has long concrete shear walls in the two orthogonal directions. Most of the shear walls have non-planar sections. Shear walls are essentially the only vertical structural members of the building. This is a structural configuration often used in China even in areas with moderate seismicity due to strict low inter-storey drift requirements imposed from Chinese standards when designing for earthquakes. The evaluation of the building was conducted according to European standards. Two methods of assessment, one using a modal response spectrum analysis and one using a displacement-based approach, were applied for the building. A nonlinear finite element analysis program that uses a smeared, rotating-crack formulation for reinforced concrete was used for the pushover analysis of the building. Differences between European and Chinese standards with regard to the design of concrete buildings and the seismic design philosophy in general, concerning e.g. the spectral form and the earthquake design levels, are addressed. Even though this building seems at first view to comfortably meet modern seismic design prescriptions, the results show that the building cannot withstand the total seismic code actions. This is mainly due to low shear strength. The seismic performance of the building is assessed and the vulnerability of this kind of structures designed and built with previous seismic codes of China is discussed.

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