Implications of major international codal design provisions for open ground storey buildings

Abstract

Parking space for residential apartments in populated cities is a matter of major concern. Hence the trend has been to utilize the ground storey of the building itself for parking. “Open Ground Storey” (OGS) buildings are those types of buildings in which the ground storey is free of any infill masonry walls. These types of buildings are very common in India for parking provisions. The strength and stiffness of infill walls in infilled frame buildings are ignored in the structural modelling in conventional design practice. The design in such cases will generally be conservative in the case of fully infilled framed building. But the behaviour is different in the case of OGS framed building. OGS framed building is slightly stiffer than the bare frame, has larger drift (especially in the ground storey), and fails due to soft storey-mechanism at the ground floor.