Seismic Collapse Safety of Reinforced Concrete Buildings. II: Comparative Assessment of Nonductile and Ductile Moment Frames
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 137, Issue 4
Abstract
This study is the second of two companion papers to examine the seismic collapse safety of reinforced concrete frame buildings, and examines nonductile moment frames that are representative of those built before the mid-1970s in California. The probabilistic assessment relies on nonlinear dynamic simulation of structural response to calculate the collapse risk, accounting for uncertainties in ground-motion characteristics and structural modeling. The evaluation considers a set of archetypical nonductile RC frame structures of varying height that are designed according to the seismic provisions of the 1967 Uniform Building Code. The results indicate that nonductile RC frame structures have a mean annual frequency of collapse ranging from 5 to at a typical high-seismic California site, which is approximately 40 times higher than corresponding results for modern code-conforming special RC moment frames. These metrics demonstrate the effectiveness of ductile detailing and capacity design requirements, which have been introduced over the past 30 years to improve the safety of RC buildings. Data on comparative safety between nonductile and ductile frames may also inform the development of policies for appraising and mitigating seismic collapse risk of existing RC frame buildings.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This research has been supported by PEER Center through the Earthquake Engineering Research Centers Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF, under award number NSFEEC-9701568) and the Applied Technology Council through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s P695 (ATC-63) project. Additional support for the first writer was provided by a Stanford Graduate Fellowship and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. The writers appreciate the participation and contributions of collaborators from PEER, ATC, and FEMA in this study; and would like to acknowledge the constructive input of Jack Baker, Brian Dean, Charles Kircher, Helmut Krawinkler, Eduardo Miranda, C. Marc Ramirez, and three anonymous reviewers.
References
American Concrete Institute (ACI). (2005). “Building code requirements for structural concrete.” ACI 318, Farmington Hills, MI.
ASCE. (2002). “Minimum design loads for buildings and other structures.” ASCE 7-02, Reston, VA.
Aslani, H., and Miranda, E. M. (2005). “Probabilistic earthquake loss estimation and loss disaggregation in buildings.” Blume TR 157, Stanford Univ., Palo Alto, CA.
Blume, J. A., Newmark, N. M., and Corning, L. H. (1961). Design of multistory reinforced concrete buildings for earthquake motions, Portland Cement Association, Chicago, 318.
Degenkolb, H., and Scott, S. (1994). Connections: The EERI Oral History Series, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, Oakland, CA.
Deierlein, G. G. (2004). “Overview of a comprehensive framework for earthquake performance assessment.” Proc., Int. Workshop on Performance-Based Seismic Design–Concepts and Implementation, PEER Rep. 2004/05, P. Fajfar, and H. Krawinkler, eds., Pacific Engineering Research Center, Berkeley, CA, 15–26.
Elwood, K. (2004). “Modeling failures in existing reinforced concrete columns.” Can. J. Civ. Eng., 31(5), 846–859.
Elwood, K., and Moehle, J. (2005). “Drift capacity of reinforced concrete columns with light transverse reinforcement.” Earthquake Spectra, 21(1), 71–89.
Goulet, C. A., et al. (2007). “Evaluation of the seismic performance of a code-conforming reinforced-concrete frame building–From seismic hazard to collapse safety and economic losses.” Earthquake Eng. Struct. Dyn., 36(13), 1973–1997.
Haselton, C. B., Baker, J. W., Liel, A. B., and Deierlein, G. G. (2011a). “Accounting for ground-motion spectral shape characteristics in structural collapse assessment through an adjustment for epsilon.” J. Struct. Eng., 137(3), 332–344.
Haselton, C. B., and Deierlein, G. G. (2007). “Assessing seismic collapse safety of modern reinforced concrete frame buildings.” Blume Center Technical Rep. No. 156.
Haselton, C. B., et al. (2008). “An assessment to benchmark the seismic performance of a code-conforming reinforced-concrete moment-frame building.” PEER Rep. 2007/12, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), Univ. of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.
Haselton, C. B., Liel, A. B., Deierlein, G. G., Dean, B. S., and Chou, J. H. (2011b). “Seismic collapse safety of reinforced concrete buildings. I: Assessment of ductile moment frames.” J. Struct. Eng., 137(4), 481–491.
Haselton, C., Liel, A., Taylor Lange, S., and Deierlein, G. G. (2008). “Beam-column element model calibrated for predicting flexural response leading to global collapse of RC frame buildings.” PEER Rep. 2007/03, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), Univ. of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.
Ibarra, L. F., Medina, R. A., and Krawinkler, H. (2005). “Hysteretic models that incorporate strength and stiffness deterioration.” Earthquake Eng. Struct. Dyn., 34(11), 1489–1511.
International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO). (1967). Uniform Building Code, Pasadena, CA.
International Code Council (ICC). (2003). International Building Code, Falls Church, VA.
Krawinkler, H., and Zareian, F. (2007). “Prediction of collapse—How realistic and practical is it, and what can we learn from it?” Struct. Des. Tall Special Build., 16(5), 633–653.
Liel, A. B., and Deierlein, G. G. (2008). “Assessing the collapse risk of California’s existing reinforced concrete frame structures: Metrics for seismic safety decisions.” Blume Center Technical Report No. 166.
Liel, A. B., Haselton, C. B., Deierlein, G. G., and Baker, J. W. (2009). “Incorporating modeling uncertainties in the assessment of seismic collapse risk of buildings.” Struct. Saf., 31(2), 197–211.
Lowes, L. N., and Altoontash, A. (2003). “Modeling of reinforced-concrete beam-column joints subjected to cyclic loading.” J. Struct. Eng., 129(12), 1686–1697.
Mitra, N., and Lowes, L. N. (2007). “Evaluation, calibration and verification of a reinforced concrete beam-column joint model.” J. Struct. Eng., 133(1), 105–120.
Moehle, J., Lehman, D., and Lowes, L. (2006). “Beam-column connections.” New information on the seismic performance of existing buildings, EERI Technical Seminar.
Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (OpenSEES). (2009). Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, 〈http://opensees.berkeley.edu/〉.
Pantelides, C. P., Clyde, C., and Reaveley, L. D. (2002). “Performance-based evaluation of reinforced concrete building exterior joints for seismic excitation.” Earthquake Spectra, 18(3), 449–480.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 137 • Issue 4 • April 2011
Pages: 492 - 502
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 14, 2009
Accepted: Jun 30, 2010
Published online: Jul 15, 2010
Published in print: Apr 1, 2011
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.