Journals Proceedings

Abstract

Generally, Malaysian citizen are very fortunate because their country is situated relatively far away from active seismic fault zones. Hence, seismic consideration is not taken into account in Malaysian construction industry. However, after experiencing tremors from Sumatra Andaman and Philippines earthquakes which caused vibration on buildings, local authority start to consider about implementing seismic design for new buildings. Since have very limited experience in dealing with seismic design, there is some uncertainties among engineers about level of ductility and behavior factor, q to be used and their effect on cost of material. This paper investigated the difference of steel reinforcement when seismic provision is considered in reinforced concrete design of general office building. A total three regular moment resisting frame had been designed based on Eurocode 8 with various level of behavior factor, q for ductility class medium. From this study, it is observed that the level of behavior factor, q is strongly influencing the cost of steel reinforcement where the decrement of cost is in range of 22.1 to 42.5% lower compared to the highest one.