Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Perry Adebar, Ph.D., P.Eng., Prof., University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; Ronald DeVall, Ph.D., P.Eng.,
Read Jones Christoffersen, Vancouver, Canada; James Mutrie, P.Eng., Jones Kwong Kishi, North Vancouver (retired),
Contact: adebar@civil.ubc.ca
DOI: 10.2749/101686617X14676303588670
Magnitude of earthquake
6.5
Number of stories
10 5.0
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 0 100 200 300 400 500
Year of construction Distance from Vancouver (km)
F ig . 1: High-rise buildings in Vancouver (data from F i g. 2 : Earthquakes near Vancouver in the last 30 years
Skyscraperpage.com).15 (data from Natural Resources Canada).14
movement in Vancouver due to an Vancouver Building Height (CBD), as long as the building is not
earthquake has had a very dominant Restrictions within any of the designated view cor-
inuence on the structural form of ridors. Buildings in other parts of the
While Vancouver had some of the tal-
high-rise buildings in Vancouver, and CBD are limited to 180 m. Three
lest buildings one hundred years ago,
this is the primary subject of this CBD shoulder zones are limited to
today the tallest buildings in Vancou-
paper. Figure 3 summarizes how 170 m, while a fourth CBD shoulder
ver are very low in comparison to
earthquake demands on high-rise zone is limited to 150 m. The City also
other cities. The tallest building in
buildings in Vancouver has changed permits taller buildings in two promi-
Vancouver, Living Shangri-La, is only
over the past 40 years. The design nent bridge gateways that mark the
201 m high (59 oors; Fig. 1). The
spectral acceleration values specied entry into downtown from the Bur-
reason for the low building heights is
by the National Building Code of rard and Granville Bridges.
not the signicant earthquake hazard,
Canada (NBCC)2 have been trans-
as assumed by some. The City of Van-
lated into the corresponding design
couver has restricted building heights Early Canadian Building Codes
spectral displacement values for build-
in order to protect the view of the
ings with a fundamental lateral period The Canadian building code for the
North Shore Mountains, the down-
T = 2 s (about a 20-story building) design of concrete buildings refers to
town skyline and the surrounding
and T = 4 s (about a 40-story build-
water.3 combined requirements of two sepa-
ing). As shown in Fig. 3, the earth- rate documents. The rst is the
quake demands increased signicantly Recently, the City of Vancouver has NBCC2, which is adopted by the pro-
in 1985, in 1995 for tall buildings relaxed the height restrictions in cer- vinces and large cities such as Van-
(T = 4 s), and also in 2015. Today, the tain areas of the city.3 Building couver that have a legal charter to
earthquake displacements that build- heights up to 210 m are now permit- adopt their own building code. NBCC
ings must be designed for are more ted along the three primary streets of species the general design require-
than four times what they were Georgia, Burrard and Granville ments for earthquakes, while the
in 1975. within the Central Business District design and detailing requirements for
concrete buildings are specied in
Canadian Standard CSA A23.3,4
which is referenced by NBCC.
400
Early editions of NBCC required
Spectral displacement (mm)
T = 4.0 s
buildings to be designed for a lateral
300 seismic force equal to 2 or 4% of the
building weight depending only on
the type of soil supporting the build-
200
T = 2.0 s ing. In the 1960 NBCC, the ratio of
lateral seismic force to building weight
100 was reduced with number of stories.
By 1965, the type of construction
became a factorframed buildings
0 with moment-resisting connections
1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
needed to be designed for only 60%
Year
of the seismic force that other types of
F ig . 3: Summary of how earthquake demands on high-rise buildings in Vancouver have buildings had to be designed for. In
changed over the past 40 years: spectral displacements at T = 2.0 s and T = 4.0 s. the seismically active west coast of the
600
beams4 above the 950 mm wide door
openings into the stairwell and the
1200 mm wide openings into the ele-
vator lobby area. With typical clear
story heights of 2.6 m, 0.2 m thick
slabs, and 2.12.2 m high door open-
ings, the coupling beams are typically
600700 mm deep. In a typical Van-
8600
600
The wall system is designed so that
the coupling beams above the wall
400 350 600 openings will yield prior to the verti-
cal reinforcement at the base of the
F ig . 6: Partial oor plan showing a typical core from a modern high-rise building in
wall yielding due to the uplift forces
Vancouver. (Units: [mm])
from the coupling beams. That is, the
design uplift forces in the wall piers
building. The box-shape arrangement walls is very effective in controlling
are increased to account for over-
of walls has a number of signicant the torsional deformations of the
strength of the coupling beams. In
advantages. First, the perpendicular building and for resisting the applied
order to maximize the axial compres-
walls act as compression anges that seismic accidental torsional moment. sion applied to the walls from dead
ensure the compression strain depth is load of the structure, the gravity-load
A typical Vancouver core (as shown
limited to a small portion of the wall in Fig. 6) acts as three independent columns are usually positioned as far
length. This is important in order to cantilever walls in one direction as possible away from the core. The
meet the seismic ductility require- (bending about a horizontal axis in typical oor slabs in residential build-
ments in the Canadian code described Fig. 6), and acts as three (U or ings are 190 mm reinforced concrete
in Section Ductility of Flexural Walls. inverted-U shaped) coupled walls in at plate slabs that span up to 6.6 m
Second, the box arrangement of the transverse direction (bending from the core to the columns. In ofce
F i g. 7: Unique design aspects of the tallest high-rise building in Vancouver: Living Shangri-La (a), three-dimensional perspectives of
core walls (b) and typical mid-level oor plan (c)
The building code does not provide shear walls increased signicantly [10] Adebar P, Mutrie J, & DeVall R. Ductility
any requirements, or even any guid- more. There was also an increase in the of concrete walls: the Canadian seismic design
ance on how, to design a building so level of accidental torsion that buildings provision 1984 to 2004. Can. J. Civil Eng. 2005;
had to resist. At the same time, three- 32(6): 11241137.
that it is more likely to be useable after
an earthquake. Whether or not a build- dimensional structural analysis pro- [11] Adebar P, DeVall R, Mutrie JG. Design of
ing will be useable after an earthquake grams became readily available so that gravity-load resisting frames for seismic dis-
designers became fully aware of the placement demands, Proceedings of the 10th
will depend on factors such as the soil National Conference in Earthquake Engineering,
conditions beneath the building and torsional movements of the buildings.
EERI, Anchorage, July 2014; 11 pp.
the architecture of the building. Recent Finally, new ductility requirements
designs that have been motivated by required that shear walls were able to [12] Adebar P. Nonlinear rotation of capacity-
resist the applied axial compressions protected foundations: the 2015 Canadian build-
the Citys mandate for a new bench- ing code. Earthq. Spectra 2015; 31(4):
mark of architectural creativity are over a very short length of the walls.
18851907.
resulting in buildings that are more As a result of all these factors, large
central core-wall systems became the [13] Adebar P, DeVall R, Bazargani P,
likely to be damaged, and therefore Anderson D. Design of foundations: the 2015
more likely to be unusable, after an prevalent SFRS in high-rise buildings
Canadian Building Code. Proceedings of the
earthquake because of the irregularity in Vancouver and this continues to this
10th National Conference in Earthquake
of the structural systems that results day. The system has recently become Engineering, EERI, Anchorage, July 2014;
from the architectural creativity. popular in California as well. 11 pp.
[14] Natural Resources Canada. http://www.
Conclusions earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca (accessed 15
References March 2016).
While the City of Vancouver has not [1] Adams J, Halchuk S, Allen, T, Rogers G. [15] http://skyscraperpage.com/ (accessed 20
yet experienced a damaging Canadas 5th Generation seismic hazard model, March 2016).