Title:
Observations on Proportions of the Reinforced Concrete Buildings in Turkey
Author(s):
Sim
Publication:
Web Session
Volume:
ws_F23_Sim.pdf
Issue:
Appears on pages(s):
Keywords:
DOI:
Date:
10/29/2023
Abstract:
On February 6, 2023, two earthquakes, a Mw 7.8 followed by a Mw 7.7 earthquake (9 hour 7 minutes apart from the first event) struck Turkey and Syria. ACI Committee 133 deployed five members who teamed up with engineers from US and Turkey. The team surveyed 242 reinforced concrete buildings from 10 cities over the course of 11 days in March and April 2023. The team surveyed buildings that had RC frame or shear wall as their main lateral force resisting system. Photographs, structural and/or architectural drawings, column and wall dimensions, floor area, number of stories in buildings, and GPS coordinates were collected to study the proportions of the buildings in Turkey. Buildings that had 1) poor detailing with beam reinforcing steel terminating next to the joints, 2) transverse reinforcement not confining the longitudinal bars properly, and 3) lap splices placed on column or wall bases had severe damage. However, we observed that a. even buildings without apparent structural damage often had severe widespread non-structural damage and were scheduled for demolition, and b. a few buildings with better details experienced large drifts (with an instance of permanent story drift ratio of approximately 6%, and another instance of overturning). In addition, we observed clear correlation between structural performance and measured relative cross-sectional areas of columns and structural walls. The buildings with smaller and or fewer walls and columns were more likely to have structural and non-structural damage. In general, buildings relying mostly on structural walls to resist earthquake demands performed better than buildings relying on frames.