A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Civil Engineering

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1998

In this thesis work, the original architectural and structural drawings of a four story, six story, and seven-story reinforced concrete buildings were brought from Peshawar (Pakistan), in order to study the effect of various parameters on the cost of the buildings as per Uniform Building Code, 1994. According to the designers, the seismic resistant design has not been considered in the original design. The three buildings were redesigned with and without the consideration of seismic resistance which, in this study, are called as seismic resistant design and redesign respectively. The percentage structural cost increase and overall building cost increase of the seismic resistant design in various zones from the redesign for four, six and seven story buildings, are calculated. It is observed that differential structural cost of these buildings increase with increase in seismic intensity. It also increases with increase in height of the building with the exception of six story building in zones 3 and 4. It happened because no change occurred in member cross sections of the building with increase in seismic intensity. The only factor which increased the structural cost was the amount of reinforcement. The percentage difference in the total building cost increases with the increase in seismic intensity as well as in building height. However, the differential cost between four and six story buildings in zones 3 and 4 is nominal which shows that the structural cost is the major contributor to the increase in seismic resistant costs. The difference of both the structural cost and overall building cost between seismic resistant design and original design reveals similar information. It is observed that the original design of four story building is safe up to zone 2B and that of six story building up to zone 2A. This suggests that either some indirect measures may have been taken for earthquake resistant or the building may have been over designed slightly. The difference in overall building cost for all the three buildings increase sharply from zone 2B and to zone-3. The difference for four and six story buildings between zones 3 and 4 is about 33% where it is 66% for seven story building.