Investigation Into Analytical Vulnerability Curves Derivation Aspects Considering Modeling Uncertainty for Infilled RC Buildings

Abstract eng:
Reinforced concrete (RC) buildings represent the dominant type of construction in several earthquake prone countries and in the rest of the world. These structures are usually characterized by the presence of partition walls commonly made of unreinforced masonry bricks infill. To reduce the computational effort required to derive fragility functions, numerous researchers have attempted to use simplified assumptions, such as, the use of default values to model structural characteristics-related parameters (i.e., mechanical properties, geometric configuration, and dimensions), ignoring the contribution of infills in the seismic response by modelling infilled RC building as bare frame,...etc.,. However, such simplifications may highly decrease the reliability and accuracy of the obtained results introducing important epistemic uncertainty in the fragility function construction process. This paper investigates the different aspects of uncertainties resulting in adopting simplification in structural and mathematical modelling, and the resulting fragility curves. In the first section, the paper presents the results of sensitivity analysis that has been conducted examining the influence of the variation in structural characteristics-related parameters. The second section is devoted to a comparative analysis of different fragility curves developed with and without considering the contribution of infill panels (i.e. influence of numerical model completeness). The present study was conducted within the framework of the research project “Global Vulnerability Estimation Methods” funded by the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) foundation.

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