Evaluation of Natural Frequency Through Measurement of Ambient Vibration for Wall-type RC Structures

Presently, apartment structure plans tend to depart from the standard pattern based on owners' requests and frame structures are becoming popular instead of wall-type structures and typical structure systems. Moreover, traditional concepts concerning effective land use in addition to importance of view lead to building high-rise buildings with heights of more than 100 m. According to UBC97, the seismic design of such buildings is gaining more attention, specifically, calculations of exact period are very important for equivalent static analysis. The purpose of this study was to consider the safety factors for the natural period of wall-type and high-rise apartments by comparing the natural period obtained by ambient vibration tests and period simplified formulae recommended by UBC97. Target structures followed by a building's height, structural system and plan type were selected. The reinforced concrete structure apartment's natural periods were measured using the ambient vibration method. An approximately 30% error between the eigenvalue analysis and test data obtained by the ambient vibration method has been reported.