Experimental investigation on seismic behavior of steel reinforced concrete transfer structure with lapping columns

Abstract

Transfer structures are commonly employed in high-rise buildings to redistribute loads from non-aligned upper floors to the structural system below. In this study, a steel-reinforced concrete transfer structure with lapping columns was implemented to address vertical structural discontinuities in the design of a mountain-shaped facade. An experimental program was conducted to evaluate the seismic performance of the proposed transfer structure under cyclic loading. Experimental results were compared with numerical simulations to assess their accuracy. The findings demonstrated that the transfer structure with lapping columns exhibited favorable seismic performance, providing adequate safety redundancy when subjected to seismic loads. Furthermore, the test specimen successfully met the design criterion of a strong-column weak-beam system. The numerical simulation showed good agreement with the experimental data, particularly in the backbone curve. Parametric study results indicated that the axial compression ratio and the volumetric hoop ratio were adopted appropriately for the engineering practice. This study provides valuable insights for the design and optimization of transfer structures with lapping columns in high-rise buildings.