Application of the Risk-Based Seismic Design Procedure To a Reinforced Concrete Frame Building

Abstract eng:
Usually seismic design procedures are based on elastic analysis by using design acceleration spectrum, which implicitly takes into account the ability of inelastic energy absorption of the structural system, and capacity design principles. Thus, current standards for earthquake-resistant design of buildings do not control seismic risk to such an extent that would be acceptable for all types of structures and for all investors. Development is therefore oriented towards advanced design methods, which can be used to achieve well informed decision-making based on target reliability. In this paper, the risk-based seismic design procedure is applied in order to design a reinforced concrete building for a tolerable seismic risk. The procedure is based on the use of nonlinear methods of analysis (pushover-based method and nonlinear time history analysis). Herein the procedure for risk assessment is briefly described. It involves envelope-based pushover analysis procedure and the new closed-form solution for estimating the annual probability of exceeding selected limit states, which provide less conservative results as that proposed by Cornell. The procedure is demonstrated by designing an eight-storey RC frame building for tolerable risk. It is shown that several iterations were needed in order to fulfill the requirement of tolerated seismic risk. However, the final configuration of the structure was checked using nonlinear response history analysis, where it is shown that the envelope-based pushover analysis procedure provided a slightly conservative estimate of collapse risk. The proposed design procedure enables explicit estimation of the seismic risk and verification of the collapse mechanism, which is an advantage in comparison to the design procedure prescribed by Eurocode 8.

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