International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET)

Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2017, pp. 623627 Article ID: IJCIET_08_01_072

Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=8&IType=1
ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316

IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

BEHAVIOR OF BUILDING FRAMES ON SOILS OF

VARYING PLASTICITY INDEX
Sai Kumar V B Y
PG student Department of Civil Engineering,
K L University, Vaddeswaram, AP, INDIA

Hanumantharao Ch
Professor Department of Civil Engineering,
K L University, Vaddeswaram, AP, INDIA.

ABSTRACT
Objective: To find the seismic behavior of building frames on soils of varying plasticity index.
Method: To achieve this goal soils of various plasticity indices are selected and building frames
are selected according to the Indian standard codes. The building frames are modelled and
analyzed using STAAD.pro software with two different boundary conditions (I) fixed base
condition (without soil structure interaction (ssi)) (ii) flexible base model considering ssi using
springs. Nonlinear dynamic analyses are run from earthquake ground motion data in EduShake
software for the two boundary conditions discussed. Findings: The output on the basis of lateral
displacements, base shears and the interstorey drifts to the stated boundary conditions are
attained and discussed. Applications: used in the dynamic analysis of building frames.
Key words: Soil Structure Interaction, Plasticity Index, Edushake, Staadpro, Seismic
Behaviour.
Cite this Article: Sai Kumar V B Y and Hanumantharao Ch, Behavior of Building Frames On
Soils of Varying Plasticity Index. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology,
8(1), 2017, pp. 623627.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=8&IType=1

1. INTRODUCTION
Dynamic properties of soils Shear modulus, damping are most important factors of amplification
phenomenon during Earthquakes. The shear modulus, damping ratio curves are been generated based on
nonlinearity soil from hysteresis loops. Two vital qualities of the state of hysteresis loop are the broadness
and slant. The slant of the loop relies on upon the firmness of the soil, which can be described at any point
during the loading process by the tangent shear modulus. Obviously, tangent shear modulus varies
throughout a cycle of loading, but its average value over the entire loop can be estimated by secant shear
modulus.

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 Sai Kumar V B Y and Hanumantharao Ch

G as follows:
G= /
Where, WD is dissipated energy in one hysteresis loop, WS is the maximum strain energy, where the
area of the hysteresis loop is denoted as A. Where, c, c are the shear strain and shear stress amplitudes
at a defined point. Thus, G defines the slope of hysteresis loop1. The breadth of the hysteresis loop is
related to the area, which can be defined by the damping ratio as follows:
= WD/4WS
Forms of the relationship expressing shear modulus and damping ratio as a function of shear strain,
called backbone curves, play a crucial role for determining the results of soil-structure interaction
analysis2. Much information on this aspect of dynamic soil property determination has been presented
since the early 1970s by several researchers In cohesive soils, the backbone curves depend on Plasticity
Index (PI). The distinction between the plastic and liquid cut off points is known as the Plasticity Index,
Plasticity is an important characteristic in the case of fine soils Large number of studies dealing with
relationship between damping ratio and shear modulus ratio (G/Gmax) with cyclic shear strain (backbone
curves) in cohesive soils have been carried out3. The backbone curves advised for use in seismic site-
response evaluation and microzonation. They conducted a study on number of cyclic loading tests and
concluded that the soil PI is main factor controlling the backbone curves for a variety of cohesive soils.
In the paper, seismic behaviour of building frames on soils of varying plasticity index ranges i.e (0, 10-
20, 20-40 and 40-80) are investigated on the basis of base shear and storey drift and maximum lateral
displacements4,5.

2. METHODOLOGY
2.1. Earthquake Ground Motion
In order to analyse the seismic response for building frames on soils of varying plasticity indices an
earthquake record El-Centro 1940 earthquake is used which is shown in Figure1. and it is analysed for
the soil data of various plasticity indices ranges (0, 10-20, 20-40 and 40-80)in Edushake Software
Package generates response spectrum method of time period vs spectral acceleration graphs which is
used for our study. The Shear Wave velocity of soils is calculated by using the Empirical relations
between Standard Penetration Number and Shear Wave Velocity6 which is as follows

Vs=82.46 N0.4

Figure 1 Utilized earthquake acceleration record of El Centro earthquake (1940) in this study

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 Behavior of Building Frames On Soils of Varying Plasticity Index

2.2 STRUCTURAL MODELS

To study the seismic behaviour of building frames Structural sections of single bay two storeys three
dimensional with storey height of 3mt is adopted which is as shown in Figure 2.The building frame is
analysed in the Software Package of Staadpro7,8 using the response spectrum method time period vs
spectral acceleration graphs of various soils of different plasticity indices obtained from Edushake
Software. Nonlinear dynamic analyses were carried out for structural model in both (i) fixed base
conditions (ii) flexible condition considering SSI by using springs with stiffness constant9.
Ks=kn=10[k+4/3 ]
Where K=Bulk modulus of soil
G= Shear modulus of soil
Z min = the smallest width of an adjoining zone in the normal direction
Youngs Modulus of E = 6000kN/mt2 - 15000 kN/mt2

Figure 2. Three Dimensional Building Frame

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The dynamic analyses results of structural model on the basis of base shears Table1, maximum lateral
deflections Table2, average inter storey drifts are shown in Table 3, for fixed and flexible base models
on the soil, having different plasticity, it was concluded that the base shear values gradually decreased
as the plasticity index of the soil decreases in comparison with plasticity index 0 and the base shear
values decreased for fixed as compared with plasticity index 0 and increased for other plasticity index
cases. It is observed that the maximum lateral storey displacement increases as the storey increases in all the
cases and for PI=o it has significant impact as compared with the fixed condition case. For remaining
plasticity index cases i.e other than PI=0 maximum storey displacement has lesser influence has compared
to that of the fixed condition. It was noted that the plasticity index with 0and 10-20 has considerable
effects on the storey drift of the building as compared to that of fixed case .and has so little impact when
compared the fixed base condition with other plasticity index ranges. From the above results it was
concluded that the building frames on soils of PI =0 are more severe to seismic behaviour as compared

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 Sai Kumar V B Y and Hanumantharao Ch

to the other cases .where as for other cases of PI the seismic vulnerability is low as compared to the
fixed case.

Table 1. Base Shear (Vb) kN values for the structure

Storey height PI: 0 PI:10-20 PI:20-40 PI:40-80 Fixed
0 31.88 10.48 11.01 10.95 12.51
3 31.86 10.48 11.00 10.94 12.51
6 25.23 855 9.11 9.06 10.55
9 16.05 5.38 5.28 5.46 5.95

Table 2. Maximum Lateral Storey Displacement (cm) values for each Storey
Storey height PI: 0 PI:10-20 PI:20-40 PI:40-80 Fixed
0 0.0082 0.0027 0.0028 0.0028 0.000
3 0.2890 0.0956 0.1014 0.1008 0.1087
6 0.6741 0.2272 0.2420 0.2406 0.2618
9 0.9509 0.3210 0.3408 0.3400 0.3658

Table 3 Storey Drift (cm) values for each Storey

Storey Height PI: 0 PI:10-20 PI:20-40 PI:40-80 Fixed
0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
3 0.2808 0.0929 0.0980 0.0980 0.1087
6 0.3852 0.1316 0.1406 0.1399 0.1531
9 0.2768 0.0938 0.0988 0.0994 0.1040

4. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, the seismic behaviour of building frames have been investigated for the wide range of
Plasticity Indices of soils varying between 0 to 100%. To achieve this goal, a numerical ssi model is
developed in staadpro. EDUSHAKE Software Package generates response spectrum method of time
period vs spectral acceleration graphs which is used for our study Nonlinear performance of the soil has
been developed using backbone curves of (G/G max) and damping ratio vs shear strain. It can be noticed
from obtained results that ssi has noticeable influence on seismic behaviour of building frames on soils
of varying Plasticity Indices of Indian soils. Therefore, the conventional design procedure - structure
interaction may not be provide the structural performance of building frames on soil deposits. The effects
of soil plasticity should be carefully taken into consideration.

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