Abstract:
Albania is undergoing continuous development, especially in terms of
economic and society. The country has witnessed a notable increase in population
growth, leading to a rise in construction activity with new infrastructure projects
expanding daily where the equilibrium in the demand-offer ratio is not consistently
upheld. However, a considerable portion of Albania’s current stock comprises of
structures designed and build during the communist era. Additionally, our country is
well known to be in a seismic active region which has been hit by several earthquakes
considering the recent one on November 26, 2019. Therefore, this study targets to
examine the structural performance of a 5-story template reinforced concrete building
in Albania designed during 1980’s. Using advanced finite element method analysis
(FEM) software Zeus-NL, the study employs two performance earthquake engineering
methods, Pushover and Time History analysis.
The load bearing capacity of the building is estimated by the means of pushover
analysis under uniform, inverted triangular and modal loading patterns in both
orthogonal directions. Additionally, Time History Analysis was then performed to
calculate the demand of each direction of the building. Based on the FEMA guidelines,
the Immediate Occupancy (IO), Life Safety (LS) a Collapse Prevention (CP) is
determined in the capacity cures. In the end, a comparison between the static curves
and the dynamic response of the structure has been carried out. Finally, conclusions as
well as recommendations for further studies on this typology of buildings
