Robustness analysis of reinforced concrete structures: design issues

The goal of this work is to evaluate the structural robustness of a reinforced concrete building, designed in a highly seismic area, in order to define some improvements of the design criteria. In particular, a five-storey and four-span 2D frame designed according to Italian and European code rules, also accounting for the seismic design, is presented. Some modifications are considered in terms of continuity of longitudinal bars in order to investigate effects on the structural robustness. Those applied modifications are then checked to respect the ultimate limit state and seismic capacity-design verifications. Then, using the finite element software Atena 2D, displacement-controlled pushdown analyses are performed. By studying the resulting force-displacement capacity curves, the capability of the structure to show a from a robustness view point is analysed.