Seismic fragilities of non-ductile reinforced concrete frames with consideration of soil structure interaction

Abstract

Seismic fragilities of buildings are often developed without consideration of soil-structure interaction (SSI), where base of the building is assumed to be fixed. This study highlights effect of SSI and uncertainty in soil properties such as friction angle, cohesion, density, shear modulus and Poisson's ratio and foundation parameters on seismic fragilities of non-ductile reinforced concrete frames resting in dense silty sand. Three-, five-, and nine-storey three-bay moment resisting reinforced concrete frames resting on isolated shallow foundation are studied and the numerical models for SSI are developed in OpenSees. Three sets of 10 ground motions, with mean spectrum of 100, 500, and 1000. yr return period hazard level (matching EC-8 design spectrum), are used for the nonlinear time history analyses. An optimized Latin Hyper Cube sampling technique is used to draw the sample of soil properties and foundation parameters. The fragilities are developed for the fixed base model and SSI models. However, the fragilities that incorporate the soil parameter and foundation uncertainties are only slightly different from those based solely on the uncertainty in seismic demand from earthquake ground motion, suggesting that fragilities that are developed under the assumption that all soil and foundation parameters at their median (or mean) values are sufficient for the purpose of earthquake damage or loose estimation of structures resting on dense silty sand. But the consideration of the SSI effect has the significant influence on the fragilities compare to the fixed base model. The structural parameter uncertainty and foundation modeling uncertainty are not considered in the study. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.