Seismic response of acceleration-sensitive nonstructural components in a Thin Lightly-Reinforced Concrete Wall (TLRCW) mid-rise building

Experience in recent earthquakes has shown that Non-Structural Components (NSCs) in multi-story buildings exert a significant influence on economic losses. Different topics about the seismic behavior of NSCs have been investigated; however more research is needed in several areas such as the type of building structural system and the type of seismic hazard. Motivated by this observation, floor accelerations in a novel structural system, namely the Thin and Lightly-Reinforced Concrete Wall (TLRCW) building, are examined in this paper. The TLRCW system comprises thin and slender walls with deficient or nonexistent confinement at the wall edges, and web reinforcements made of welded-wire mesh with limited ductility. In this study, seismic demands on NSCs in a TLRCW building are analytically calculated and compared with current characterizations included in earthquake-resistant building codes and presented in the literature. Comparisons are performed in terms of peak floor accelerations, floor spectra, inelastic displacement ratios, and the still not completely characterized inelastic absolute acceleration ratios. Influence of elastic and inelastic behavior of NSCs as well as of the structure is also evaluated. Since the TLRCW system is becoming common in some South American countries prone (in part or wholly) to subduction earthquakes, possible influence of the type of seismic hazard (i.e., crustal earthquakes or subduction earthquakes) is accounted for. It was found that, under design-level seismic demands, floor accelerations can be very large even though the structure undergoes a significant level of inelastic excursion. It was also found that floor accelerations are, for the most part, reasonably approximated by current characterizations. Finally, the type of seismic hazard has a negligible qualitative influence on floor accelerations (only minor quantitative differences were found).