The Influence of Transfer Plates on the Lateral Behaviour of Apartment Buildings

The skylines in the major cities of Sri Lanka are fast changing with many apartment buildings being constructed. One of the primary requirements is the provision of car parking for which the lower floors are generally used. The car parks will have a certain grid requirement for vertical load carrying members primarily arising due to guidelines specified in building regulations. Often, this grid arrangement is not suitable for apartments which generally consist of concrete walls that can become part of the partition wall system of the apartments. Therefore, it is usual to have transfer girders or a transfer plate to allow acceptable load paths for the vertical loads. When transfer plates are used in tall apartment buildings, the wind induced acceleration could be an issue that needs careful consideration. In this paper, it is shown that the transfer plates can be used as outriggers of the building is planned carefully. Such outriggers have a tendency to reduce the wind induced acceleration to reasonably low levels and hence become a useful feature despite the extra cost involved