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A large number of multi-storey reinforced concrete frame buildings with masonry infill walls, which were uniformly distributed over the height of the building, collapsed in the 1999 Kocaeli (Turkey) earthquake, due to complete failure of the first storey or the bottom two stories. In the paper it is demonstrated that a soft storey mechanism is formed in such structural systems if the intensity of ground motion is above a certain level. It is likely that collapse will occur if the global ductilities of the bare frames, as well as the ductilities of the structural elements, are low, and if the infill walls are relatively weak and brittle.
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Dolšek et al. (2001) studied this question.
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