Analytical Fragility Curves of Reinforced Concrete Buildings in Chile

Abstract eng:
Chile, as other countries along the Pacific rim, is threatened continuously by various extreme natural phenomena. The 2010 Mw 8.8 Maule earthquake, the 2014 Mw 8.1 Pisagua earthquake, the 2015 Mw 8.3 Illapel earthquake, and their subsequent tsunamis, generated comprehensive structural damage in the built environment. After the 2010 Chilean earthquake, close to 2% of the estimated 2,000 reinforced concrete (RC) buildings taller than 9 stories suffered substantial damage due to the ground motion. Consequently, calculating the probability of RC buildings of exceeding a given damage state during potential future seismic events is of paramount importance. For this purpose the definition of reliable fragility functions for these structures is required. The construction of fragility curves is part of the process of defining the seismic vulnerability of these systems. Herein, analytical fragility curves are built using a numerical model of a 20-story shear-wall prototype building. First, the two-dimensional prototype building was defined and it was modeled in OpenSEES to simulate the nonlinear seismic response of such building. The prototype building was defined based on representative characteristics of actual buildings (i.e. story height, wall thickness, and seismic weight per unit area). For simplicity, rectangular crosssections were considered for the walls and rectangular beams were used to simulate the bending behavior of the slabs. For each intensity measure of the earthquake, the seismic variability is accounted for using a set of 28 ground motions. The fragility curves obtained in this investigation are intended to further understand the seismic behavior of RC shear-wall buildings and they may be used in damage evaluation and risk assessment studies.

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