Practical Design Guide on Seismic Detailing for Concrete Buildings in Hong Kong

Abstract

The Construction Industry Council (CIC) was formed on 1st February 2007 in accordance with the Construction Industry Council Ordinance (Cap. 587) in Hong Kong. The main functions of the CIC are to forge consensus on long-term strategic issues, to convey the industry's needs and aspirations to the Government and to provide a communication channel through which the Government can solicit advice on all construction-related matters. The CIC Research Fund was established in September 2012 in order to enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of the local construction industry. The CIC Research Fund encourages research and development activities as well as applications of innovative techniques that directly meet the needs of the industry. Moreover, it also promotes the establishment of standards and good practice for the construction industry, now and into the future. This Technical Guide aims to promote knowledge in relation to practical and optimal seismic reinforced concrete (RC) to the Hong Kong construction industry with a strong emphasis on safety, effectiveness, efficiency and buildability. This Guide first quantifies the seismic deformability demands of typical RC building systems such as walls, frames and dual systems. Appropriate proportioning and seismic detailing requirements with reference to the local code of practice are then recommended for each system so as to ensure that seismic deformation capacity is higher than the expected demands of such RC components as walls, coupling beams, floor beams and columns. Optimal seismic detailing can be achieved by making savings on unnecessary construction materials and processes. The main features of this Guide include: 1. the seismic drift predictions, expressed in terms of drift ratio and beam chord rotation, with return periods of 475 and 2475 years, of typical RC building components including walls, frames and dual systems; 2. the specification of both inter-storey and distortional inter-storey drift ratio demands, as the latter is applicable to control over the seismic deformation of buildings with transfer structures; 3. recommendations for the prescriptive seismic detailing requirements for common types of RC buildings in HK; 4. the provision of ultimate drift ratio prediction formulas for beams, columns and walls validated with test data, from which engineers may estimate member sizes and determine loading and detailing requirements to suit performance criteria prescribed in the performance-based seismic design; and 5. the recommendation of simplified beam-column joint details.