Appraisal of existing lateral load resisting mechanisms for medium rise building in non-seismic region

Malaysia was considered to be safe against earthquake threat and buildings were not designed for earthquake load. However, the recent earthquake in Ranau, Sabah (2015) and tremors felt in Peninsular Malaysia due to long distance earthquakes in Sumatra raises concern on building safety in this region. In this study, a typical 18-storey building in Malaysia was chosen as a case study. Three different lateral load resisting mechanisms namely moment resisting frame, infill brickwall and shear wall were considered in this study. The capacity of the reinforced concrete structures were predicted using nonlinear pushover analysis and compared to the seismic loads on different soil foundations. It is found that the strength capacity of infilled wall and shear wall increased by 7.3% and 68.2%, while the displacement capacity reduced by 27.5% and 86.5% respectively, compared to the bare frame. It was found that the building founded on flexible soil (with high period) will be most affected by the seismic load compared to the building on hard soil. Overall, the existing building has good resistance and is capable to withstand the seismic load in both Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah. (paper)