Comparative Study of Seismic Behaviour of Flat Slab and RC Framed Structures

Abstract

Reinforced Concrete (RC) flat slabs are increasingly being adopted in several parts of the
world. The RC flat slabs have economic advantage, aesthetic appearance, speed of construction
and reduction in weight of the structure compared to conventional RC framed structure.
Earthquake resistant design of RC buildings is a continuing area of research since the
earthquake engineering has started not only in India but in other developed countries also. The
flat slab has poor performance under seismic loading and it is necessary to know the seismic
behavior of RC structure with flat slab and that of RC structure with conventional slab. The
present paper gives the analyses of a multi-storied commercial building for having flat slab
to that of a conventional Reinforced Concrete slab for the parameters like storey drift, storey
shear and axial forces. The analysis for both the structures is done with ETABS software. In
particular, the lateral load analysis results reveal that the axial load is more in flat slab RC
structure to that of conventional RC structure. Also, it is observed that base shear is more in
flat slab compared to conventional RC structure. In both the types of RC structures, the base
shear value is maximum at plinth level and minimum at terrace level. Also, the value of base
shear increases with the increase in total number of storey.