Shape Comparison for Seismic Capacity of Columns

Abstract

A historical approach of building design is, using “factor of safety” to account for uncertainty in earthquake demand and building capacity, because of lack of knowledge on earthquake demand and building capacity. Performance Based Design is an attempt to predict building with predictable seismic performance. The main component of any building is, vertical structural member named ‘column’. This paper is an attempt to obtain the seismic capacity of the column of different shapes employed in practice, so as to make use of the safest shape of the column in real life practice. To obtain the seismic capacity of the column, a Nonlinear Static Analysis (Pushover Analysis) has been used and capacity curves for all the columns were obtained. The paper also includes the shape comparison based on its seismic capacity and recommends most seismically safe shape of column for the real life practice.