Seismic performance evaluation of a tall building: Practical modeling of surrounding basement structures

The seismic performance evaluation of a 49-story residential building under construction in Seoul, Korea is the subject of this paper. The building for this case study has an irregular plan and a deep basement shared with adjacent buildings. A series of nonlinear time history analyses were carried out for the Maximum Considered Earthquake (MCE) and Rare Earthquake (RE). Effects of modeling methods of the basement were studied. Modeling of the surrounding underground structure included transfer of torsional modes, which can easily be amplified by high frequency components of ground motions and result in localized damage at the upper part of building. Based on the analysis presented, the basement model with surrounding underground structures and non soil-structure interaction is recommended for a conservative design.