SEISMIC ANALYSIS OF FRAMES WITH SEMI-RIGID CONNECTIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH EC8

Abstract

Up to date research has pointed out that most of the structural connections of reinforced concrete (RC) frames, particularly precast ones, behave as semi-rigid. Therefore, it is of great importance to develop an analysis method which takes into account the connection rigidity. For that purpose matrix formulation of the deformation method is used in this paper, and the effect of rigidity of connections on the structure response is included by stiffness matrix for semi-rigidly connected member. The elements of this matrix are functions of the fixity factors at the ends of members. The proposed method is applied in seismic analysis of the precast RC frame structure of the existing industrial hall according to Eurocode 8 (EC8).

Keywords

• semi-rigid connection
• stiffness matrix
• seismic analysis
• precast reinforced concrete system