Multiple plastic hinge concept for high-rise reinforced-concrete core wall buildings Available to Purchase

High-rise reinforced-concrete core wall buildings are a very popular choice in areas of high seismic activity. Conventionally, a single plastic hinge is allowed at the base of the wall to control responses in these buildings. Recent studies, however, show that these core walls will be subjected to large inelastic seismic demands in a seismic event. It is not economical and sometimes difficult to design these walls for large shear and moment demands. To reduce these demands, a multiple plastic hinges concept is proposed in this study. Locations of the multiple plastic hinges are identified using elastic modal decomposition analysis. A 40-storey case study building is investigated in detail to check the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The seismic demands are found using non-linear response history analysis at maximum considered earthquake level. A comparison of the multiple plastic hinges approach with the single plastic hinge approach shows that seismic shear demand reduces 17% at the base of the wall, whereas moment demand reduces 33 and 60% at the base and mid-height of the wall, respectively.