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Seismic Fragility Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Shear Wall Buildings in Canada

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Date

2017

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Publisher

Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa

Abstract

Damage observed after previous earthquakes indicates that a large number of existing buildings are vulnerable to seismic hazard. This research intends to assess seismic vulnerability of regular and irregular shear wall buildings in Canada, having different heights and different levels of seismic design and detailing. As seismic hazard is a probabilistic event, a probabilistic methodology has been adopted to assess the seismic vulnerability of the shear wall buildings. The proposed research encompasses a comprehensive fragility analysis for seismic vulnerability of shear wall buildings in Canada. The first phase of the investigation involves shear wall buildings with different heights (hence different structural periods), designed based on the 2010 National Building Code of Canada. The second phase involves shear wall buildings designed prior to 1975, representing pre-modern seismic code era. The third phase involves the evaluation of pre-1975 shear wall buildings with irregularities. 3-Dimensional simulations of the buildings were constructed by defining nonlinear modelling for shear wall and frame elements. These models were subjected to dynamic time history analyses conducted using Perform 3D software. Two sets of twenty earthquake records, compatible with western and eastern Canadian seismicity, were selected for this purpose. Spectral acceleration and peak ground acceleration were chosen as seismic intensity parameters and the first storey drift was selected as the engineering demand parameter which was further refined for irregular cases. The earthquake records were scaled to capture the structural behaviour under different levels of seismic excitations known as Incremental Dynamic Analysis. The resulting IDA curves were used as the input for seismic fragility analysis. Fragility curves were derived as probabilistic tools to assess seismic vulnerability of the buildings. These curves depict probability of exceeding immediate occupancy, life safety and collapse prevention limit states under different levels of seismic intensity.

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Keywords

fragility curves, vulnerability analysis, nonlinear modelling, dynamic analysis, seismic assessment, shear wall buildings

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