Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Existing Rc Multi-story Buildings in Duhok City, Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Abstract

vital role in the building rehabilitation and selection of retrofitting schemes. This study attempts to examine the seismic vulnerability of existing RC buildings in Duhok city to have understand and insight about their seismic performance under the effect of expected future earthquake events. For this purpose, six existing RC buildings have been selected with different number of stories to represent the building stock inventory in the city. ETABS V.18 software has been used for modeling and analysis of the buildings. The nonlinear static (pushover) analysis is employed for determining the load-deformation (pushover) curves. In addition, the improved capacity spectrum method of FEMA 440 is performed in the evaluation of the seismic performance of the buildings under the seismic hazard specified for the city. The outcomes of the study showed that most of the buildings have behaved like weak column-strong beams and vulnerable especially at ground stories. The buildings have overall limited structural damages with cracking damages in the columns at lower stories. Thus in all buildings, the strengthening for columns at ground stories is recommended.