The Influence of Epistemic Uncertainty on the Seismic Performance Assessment of Buildings

Abstract eng:
In the paper a practical methodology for the determination of the set of structural models, which need to be defined in order to simulate the influence of epistemic uncertainty on seismic response parameters, is presented. The method is based on the Latin Hypercube Sampling, and makes it possible to take into consideration different sources of epistemic uncertainty, such as the mechanical characteristics of the materials, gravity loads and the corresponding masses, viscous damping, and other modelling uncertainties such as effective slab widths and ultimate rotations. Basically it is possible to include all types of the epistemic uncertainties, which can be simulated by means of random variables. However, it is practical to consider only a limited number of the random variables, i.e. only those which have a significant influence on the seismic response of the structure. The proposed procedure has been applied to two case study reinforced concrete structures, which were both pseudo-dynamically tested at the ELSA Laboratory, Ispra. Different sources of epistemic uncertainty, which are related to the uncertain parameters of the model and the mechanical characteristics of materials, are considered in the analysis. The influence of these uncertainties on the seismic response parameter was studied based on the simplified nonlinear seismic assessment method (N2 method) as well as by means of Incremental Dynamic Analysis. The influence of the epistemic uncertainty on the seismic demand and capacity is presented in terms of the global collapse capacity.

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