Influence of Staircase and Elevator Core Location on the Seismic Capacity of an RC Frame Building

Reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls are used currently around elevator cores in multistory buildings. Although past studies have focused on the modeling of such core walls, there have been no detailed investigations of the influence of the core wall and staircase location on the seismic capacity of a building. In the present study, the structural members of a five-story RC frame building with a symmetric plan are designed to meet the provisions of an Indian building code. Material nonlinearity is incorporated into the model using a lumped plastic hinge approach for beams and columns and a layered shell approach for the core walls. A displacement-controlled nonlinear static analysis is performed for models with a staircase only and for models with both a staircase and an elevator core at different locations in the plan. It is observed that the peak lateral shear force occurs in models with a staircase and an elevator core oriented along the width of the building. In the core wall, the reinforcement layer is observed to reach its yield strength before the maximum compressive stress occurs in the inner core concrete. This indicates desirable underreinforced section behavior in the core wall panel.