Vulnerability assessment of gravity-load designed RC buildings: Evaluation of seismic capacity through non-linear dynamic analyses

This paper has evaluated the seismic capacity of some structural models which represent real RC existing buildings designed to gravity loads only, through non-linear dynamic simulations. A simulated design of the selected structural models has been performed on the basis of the codes in force and the state of practice at the time of construction. A total of 216 building classes have been defined by varying building age, number of storeys, the presence and position of infill, plan dimensions, external beam stiffness, and concrete strength. Seismic response has been analysed by taking into consideration various peak and integral intensity measures, and various response parameters, such as ductility demands and inter-storey drift. The results confirm that the best intensity measure to be used is the Housner Intensity IH, and that all the response parameters have correlation coefficient values statistically significant with IH, but the best correlation is obtained between IH and drift. Different performances have been discussed with regard to two main groups of results relevant to building age. Infill distribution and height play the most influential role in building performance among the parameters adopted to classify the structural types. The analyses performed in the present paper deal with structural types representative of whole buildings and can thus be seen as verifying and extending results already available on plane frames.

► We evaluated the seismic capacity of RC buildings designed only to gravity loads.
► A simulated design of the structural models was performed.
► We analysed seismic response by considering various intensity and damage measures.
► The best intensity measure to be used is the Housner Intensity.
► Infill distribution and height play the most influential role in building performance.