Transfer Floor Systems in High-Rise Buildings: A Review

The need for concrete structures is rising as more residential and commercial buildings are being developed. Vertical structural elements in high-rise structures mostly have varied configurations, which can lead to discontinuities in those elements. To compensate for this, a transfer floor is installed, making it easier to transfer loads between floors. However, during earthquakes, this mechanism may cause sudden variations in stiffness, potentially leading to the formation of soft storeys. It is important to examine lateral loads because the storeys beneath the transfer system lack shear walls. Transfer slabs and transfer girders can be considered as two transfer floor systems. A transfer floor system can lead to considerable structural complexities, such as stiffness discontinuities, load concentrations, and seismic vulnerabilities. Experimental and numerical results from these studies contribute to the design of high-rise buildings with a transfer floor system, ensuring occupant safety and reducing damage from earthquakes. The use of finite element analysis (FEA) software to evaluate the dynamic behavior of buildings with transfer floor systems subjected to different seismic ground motions is a common practice in structural engineering research and design. In this paper, the effects of the transfer floor system on stiffness, drift, deformation, and thickness, and the advantages of pushover analysis in transfer floor design are reviewed.