http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp 695 editor@iaeme.com International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET) Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2017, pp. 695–703 Article ID: IJCIET_08_01_081 Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=8&IType=1 ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316 © IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed BEHAVIOUR OF RC MULTI-STOREY FRAMED BUILDINGS WITH WIDE THIN COLUMNS Vaishali G Ghorpade Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, JNTU College of Engineering, Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh, India H. Sudarsana Rao Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, JNTU College of Engineering, Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh, India R.K. Tharun Thej PG student, Department of Civil Engineering, JNTU college of Engineering, Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh, India ABSTRACT Reinforced concrete (RC) framed buildings consist of several vertical load bearing members (columns and walls). The structural engineers have a tendency to model all vertical load bearing members as columns irrespective of their aspect ratio (breadth to thickness ratio). While using commercially available software package, if the structural walls (wide thin columns) are also modelled as columns, undesirable amount of longitudinal reinforcing steel becomes necessary. Hence a comparison has been made to study the savings in longitudinal reinforcing steel if the walls are modelled as surface elements (area elements) instead of line element. The incorrect modelling may lead to shear failure of beams during earthquakes which will trigger the collapse of building in an unexpected manner. It may cause loss of life. In this work, a typical symmetric RC building has been considered to study its behaviour, if the vertical load bearing members are modelled as surface/line elements. From the study it is concluded that attention should be paid while modelling the vertical load bearing members based on their aspect ratio. The effect of force distribution, time period, base shear and amount of reinforcement is studied in detail. Key words: Framed buildings, thin wide column, Analysis, Time period, Base shear, Conventional RC Frame Cite this Article: Vaishali G Ghorpade, H. Sudarsana Rao and R.K. Tharun Thej, Behaviour of RC Multi-Storey Framed Buildings with Wide Thin Columns. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology, 8(1), 2017, pp. 695–703. http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=8&IType=1 1. INTRODUCTION In developing countries like India, demand of high rise buildings is increasing day by day due to growing population and lack of land in urban areas [1]. From structural engineer’s point of view high