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D Hima Chandan – Concrete buildings

Dasari Hima Chandan received  his  doctorate in Civil Engineering (CE). His research work was supervised by Prof. Pradeep Kumar R. Here’s a summary of his research work on Seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete buildings with moment resisting frames and frames with structural walls subjected to near and far-fault ground:

One of the significant causes of life loss during an earthquake is the extensive damage to structures that requires proper mitigation measures. Broadly, two sets of parameters affect the structural response viz. (i) structural engineering parameters like configuration, stiffness, strength, ductility, and (ii) ground motion characteristics. Usually, structural engineering works on the understanding of seismic behaviour of buildings with different structural parameters when subjected to a certain level of hazard represented by ground motion. However, the effect of ground motion characteristics on building behaviour is assumed based on the suggestions by seismologist and geotechnical engineers. In many cases, the considered hazard may not be the actual or critical hazard level for the particular structure to be designed or assessed. Such uncertainty in estimating the hazard level arises as result of difference in ground motion characteristics in the near fault and the far fault regions. 

To precisely quantify the hazard prevalent in the near and far fault regions, the ground motions characteristics are delineated from the recordings of 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan earthquake. Further, the behaviour of two reinforced concrete buildings with moment resisting frames with five and ten stories is studied. Two types of horizontal near-fault ground motions with and without velocity pulse are applied. The response observed and the damage caused in the MRF buildings due to short duration impulse applied by the near-fault ground motions with pulse is distinctly identified. Structural wall system is identified as one of the solutions to control the sudden accumulation of damage in short duration. Better performance is observed with increase in structural plan density of structural walls.

February 2023