Probabilistic seismic performance assessment of code-compliant multi-story RC buildings

Fragility analyses are conducted in this study to evaluate the relative seismic safety margins of seismic code-designed multi-story reinforced concrete (RC) buildings with varying input motion intensity, ductility level and configuration. Structural variations are accounted for by using twelve buildings [13] with diverse structural systems, heights and ductile detailing. The design peak ground acceleration (PGA) is also varied. The reference structures also include regular and irregular buildings in order to cover a wide spectrum of contemporary mid-rise buildings. Incremental dynamic analyses (IDAs) are deployed using the twelve inelastic fiber-based simulation models of the reference structures and sixty natural ground motions recorded on different soil conditions with a wide range of spectral amplifications. The regression analyses of the selected response quantities show that the soil condition has a marginal effect on the demand-ground motion intensity relationships when adopting spectral acceleration to characterize the ground shaking intensity. The damage state probabilities of wall-frame structures designed to high PGA and ductility levels do not satisfactorily achieve the most favorable safety objectives. Fragilities are reduced by decreasing the design PGA due to the higher contribution of gravity loads to the details of the building design. Using extensive results from twelve buildings subjected to sixty ground motions, a relationship is proposed to enable the quantifying of the Life Safety limit state probabilities of code-compliant mid-rise RC buildings.

► Fragility analyses are conducted to evaluate the relative safety margins of RC buildings.
► Incremental dynamic analyses are carried out using 12 reference structures and 60 ground motions.
► Wall-frame structures designed to high PGA do not achieve the favorable safety objectives.
► Fragilities are reduced with decreasing the design PGA.
► A relationship is proposed to quantify the damage state probabilities of mid-rise RC buildings.