Seismic Effects on a Horizontally Unsymmetrical Building using Response Spectrum Analysis

Most of the residential buildings in Malaysia are not designed to withstand the seismic forces, while the high-rise buildings. However, since the Sumatra 2004 earthquake, there had been increasing concerns about the structure vulnerability in our country to earthquakes. Several recent studies had also revealed that Malaysia had the possibility to be influenced by both local and far field earthquakes. This study is conducted to analyze the vulnerability of a high rise building to local and far field earthquakes using Scia Engineer. Modal Response Spectrum method of Scia Engineer is used. The model is a 12 story hotel building from Ipoh, Perak. The designing code is the Eurocode with Malaysia Annex. Different Peak Ground Accelerations (PGA) that represents the local and far field earthquakes is acted on the model to obtain the seismic performance. The deformation of the building by the seismic combinations is compared to the ASCE-7 design to evaluate the vulnerability. Research of seismic performance of the flat slab system is also conducted along with beam frame system. The result shows that the building is in a safe condition in terms of deformation and the seismic performance of the flat slab system is advantageous.