Building Structural Vulnerability

Building structure is a combination of several aspects that act as a building. The information about the building structure is significant to assess the structural vulnerability of a building from various hazards. The construction materials, style and type of the buildings depends on the usage such as residential, commercial, light industrial and special buildings. The building construction types for the residential buildings are separate houses, semi-detached and apartment buildings. Commercial construction types consist predominately of, load bearing masonry, concrete frame with or without shear wall and steel frame with or without concrete shear core. These construction types also have a combination of, timber, concrete columns or steel beams floors and unreinforced masonry (and other material) exterior walls. Industrial construction types consist of unreinforced and reinforced masonry walls with supporting steel roof, steel frame with steel clad walls or unreinforced masonry walls with steel roof, small and large panel precast walls with supporting steel roof, concrete first floor with steel portal above and unreinforced masonry walls and single storey with …show more content…
This the first line of defence against environmental and physical exposure based on its intrinsic design and location. Façade is a non-load bearing exterior skin that does not contribute stiffness to the building structure. Façade is to provide and maintain air and water integrity in the cladding system, adequate wind, thermal, noise proof and seismic response in addition to provide light transmittance to the interior space. The façade system schemes may be an all-glazed façade (aluminum framed systems, point-supported systems, cable net systems), an opaque façade (such as precast, natural stone and/or metal panels) or a combination of both dependent on the building