Seismic fragility analysis of mid-story isolation buildings

Abstract

Seismic fragility analysis is essential for seismic risk assessment of structures. This study focuses on the damage probability assessment of the mid-story isolation buildings with different locations of the isolation system. To this end, the performance-based fragility analysis method of the mid-story isolation system is proposed, adopting the maximum story drifts of structures above and below the isolation layer and displacement of the isolation layer as performance indicators. Then, the entire process of the mid-story isolation system, from the initial elastic state to the elastic-plastic state, then to the limit state, is simulated on the basis of the incremental dynamic analysis method. Seismic fragility curves are obtained for mid-story isolation buildings with different locations of the isolation layer, each with fragility curves for near-field and far-field ground motions, respectively. The results indicate that the seismic fragility probability subjected to the near-field ground motions is much greater than those subjected to the far-field ground motions. In addition, with the increase of the location of the isolation layer, the dominant components for the failure of mid-story isolated structures change from superstructure and isolation system to substructure and isolation system.