Behavior of flat slabs under cyclic lateral loading

Although flat slab buildings are not recommended as a lateralresisting system by most seismic codes in areas of high seismic risk,they are cautiously used as lateral resisting system in areas of lowerseismic activities. Moreover, flat slabs are classified by seisrmc codesas a non- ductile lateral resistance system. Recently, their seisrmcperformance has attracted increasing research attention. The currentstudy IS one of the growmg research interest aimmg towardunderstanding the cyclic lateral behavior of flat slab systems in orderto evaluate and asses the strength and weakness of their seismicperformance, also to recommend suggestions to improve their behavior.This behavior was investigated analytically and experimentally.First, the behavior of flat slab building models of three, five, __seven, and nine story subject to seismic excitation was computedanalytically by using non linear analysis program, DRAIN - 2D. Thestudy buildings are considered of two panels by two panels with equalspans in both direction of 4.5 m length and another study of span 6.0m length. The principal variables considered in the analytical studywere the thickness of the slab, and the cross section of the columns.The analytical study containing three parts, the first part discusesthe dynamic behavior of flat slab under equivalent service verticalloads and simulated seismic loads by using three records of differentground motions scaled to have 0.15 g peak ground accelerationaccording to Egyptian Seismic Code. The second part represents low- IJ -