LOW AND MEDIUM SEISMIC EFFECT TO PILOTIS STRUCTURE IN MALAYSIA

The current building structures which involve the design of pilotis system is having a potential of collapsing or failing due to seismic waves produce by earthquake. Pilotis system which does not have designed to suit with sustaining seismic waves can endanger people who are using it and cause damages to the surrounding. Some factors that seismic design was not considered in the pilotis system is that maybe during the time of construction, the particular region was not considered as a seismic active region. Due to changes in time, the moving of continental drift, a seismic inactive region might become active. Thus, buildings with pilotis system which was constructed during the old days need to be retrofitted and the risk of collapsing should be mitigated. Therefore, a modeling for pilotis frame is done to check for the suitability of the pilotis system in seismic region. The research is carried out by using SEISMOSTRUCT which aids in the model designing to analyze the post effect of pilotis structure subjected to cyclic loading. A 1 bay 2 storeys pilotis structure is constructed to verify the design usability. Then a 3 bays 3 storeys strengthened pilotis structure with concrete jacket at ground columns is modeled. The results showed that with concrete jacket, the ground column perform better due to higher compressive strength properties materials used in it. The column’s concrete jacket also serves as a protection layer to the column itself which is more invulnerable to the lateral loads. Some modifications on modifying the dimensions of concrete jacket are done and is proved that larger sizing concrete jacket does help in stabilizing structures. Thus, the retrofitting method of installing concrete jacket on ground column is able to withstand the seismic loading from low to medium level. It is also recommended that larger concrete jacket may be used for catering higher level seismic loading. Higher concrete and reinforcement bar compressive strength are also suggested to be use in concordance with larger concrete jacket.