| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this project was to assess the soft storey design in buildings in Kampala. A soft storey is building having a floor level whose storey stiffness is less than 70% of the floor immediately above it or less than 80% of the average storey stiffness of the immediate floors above it. Soft storey occurrence is largely responsible for the failure of high-rise buildings around the highly developed cities in the world. Due to the high rise in the population of people, this has created a problem in the horizontal expansion due to lack of space. Hence architects have found a solution by expanding vertically, creating more room for spaces such a parking underground while maintaining the same requirement of human space.
In the thesis, two models were created to act as a representation of the buildings in Kampala. They included, a theoretical model with different variations of soft storey along the heights of the building and case study which was Kawooya Apartments that are located along Lubaga-Kitebi. Prota structures 2018 was used in the design of the theoretical model to obtain sections that passed under Eurocode 2 and seismic loadings were subjected to the above models according to Eurocode 8. Then the displacements of each storey level were determined and the values represented graphically.
The analysis of the results showed the outcome of the models and the section sizes coupled with the displacements. Different inputs affected the outcome of the models which included the materials used and the assumptions made. The lateral stiffness was higher with storeys filled with masonry infills and varied with the shape of the columns. Soft storeys create weak points along the heights of the building which do not behave linearly when a seismic load acts on the building according to the static equivalent method.
Various conclusions were made basing on the results obtained and a few recommendations have been made basing on the results that have been obtained in the research made in this project for further research.
All the necessary information of the analysis has been provided in the appendix. This includes the various calculation for the load cases, the stiffness of the different stories. | en_US |
