The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Evaluation of seismic performance of a ten-story RC building during the Whittier Narrows earthquake

Miranda, Eduardo; Bertero, Vitelmo V.

UCB/EERC-91/10, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1991-10, 102 pages (520/M57/1991)

This report summarizes the main results of studies evaluating the response of an existing instrumented ten-story reinforced concrete building which was subjected to earthquake ground motion of moderate damage potential during the 1987 Whittier Narrows, California, earthquake. The seismically laterally resistant structural system consists of moment-resisting frames in the N-S (longitudinal) direction and reinforced concrete shear walls in the E-W (transverse) direction. It was designed according to the 1970 Uniform Building Code. The ultimate goal of the studies was to evaluate the reliability of present methods of estimating the performance of existing buildings. The following objectives were pursued: (1) evaluation of the reliability of current system identification techniques for inferring the dynamic characteristics of a building from the recorded response; (2) assessment of the reliability of analytical models and methods available for conducting analyses of the seismic performance of buildings; (3) evaluation, through static and dynamic (time-history) analyses, of the strength and deformation capacity of the building, particularly the potential for damage when subjected to future critical ground motions; and (4) assessment of the implications for present earthquake-resistant design practices using the obtained results.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-91-10.pdf (4 MB)