Evaluation of Seismic Response on Small-Scale Reinforced Concrete Frame Using Small-Scale Low-Cost Equipment’s

Abstract

The security of the infrastructures is an important part and the responsibility of the nation. Therefore, the study is focused on investigating the seismic response of small-scale buildings through the shake table test. The small scale reinforced concrete building of two storey was modelled through the experiment as well as numerical simulations considering 40 MPa concrete strength. The size of the slab was 600 × 600 mm and thickness were 40 mm. The cross section of the column was 50 × 50 mm whereas the height was 300 mm. The galvanized wire was used as main reinforcement and stirrups bar having tensile strength 875 MPa and yield strength 636 MPa. The small-scale building frame was tested under the small-scale shake table which is working with adjustable speed by varying the voltage. The seismic waves were varied by considering different voltages such as 20, 40, 60 and 80V using the shake table. In order to minimize the percentage of error, more than 20 sets of observations were made at each of the voltage levels. The frequency of seismic waves such as 0.175, 0.348, 0.511 and 0.692/s was produced corresponding 20, 40, 60 and 80V, respectively. The displacement of slabs on the ground floor, first, second and third floor was recorded using the LVDT for the duration of 50 sec. The maximum top storey displacement was 50.45, 51.70, 55.31 and 61.04 against the frequency of 20, 40, 60 and 80V respectively. It was observed that the storey drift was ground, first and second floor was 0.42, 0.47 and 0.85, respectively at 60V. The numerical analysis was performed using ABAQUS finite element software incorporating concrete damage plasticity model and elasto-plastic model for concrete and reinforcement bar, respectively. The predicted storey drifts were found to be in good agreement with the experimental results corresponding to 60V. Further, the maximum peak positive acceleration predicted from the simulation was 4.72, 3.03 and 1.93g, respectively at the third (top), second (middle) and first slab (bottom), respectively.