Seismic Collapse Safety of RC Columns in Precast Industrial Buildings

Abstract eng:
The seismic collapse risk of one-storey precast industrial buildings is discussed. Due to the strong connections, the behaviour of the structures was dominated by columns having high shear span ratio. Full-scale pseudo-dynamic and cyclic tests provided important information about the behaviour of such columns when subjected to large deformations, as the structure approaches collapse. Based on the experimental results obtained, numerical model capable of modelling global collapse was improved for such columns with large shear spans. The model was applied to the seismic risk assessment of precast structures. Seismic risk was evaluated by means of probabilistic analysis, taking into account the randomness in seismic excitations and other sources of uncertainty. A verified probabilistic method was used to assess the seismic risk of the whole range of the analyzed precast structures, as built in practice. It was found that the minimum detailing requirements according to Eurocode 8 usually provide such structures with sufficient overstrength so that the seismic risk is acceptably low (the probability of collapse is 0.1–1.2 % in 50 years). However, if only design reinforcement is provided in the structures, the conservative estimate of seismic risk is high (the probability of collapse is 1.0–8.5 % in 50 years). The results have been used to obtain a quantitative evaluation of the force reduction factor used in Eurocode 8 standard.

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