The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Assessing seismic collapse safety of modern reinforced concrete moment-frame buildings

Haselton, Curtis B.; Deierlein, Gregory G.

PEER-2007/08, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 2007-08, PDF (6.2 MB) (400/P33/2007-08)

In this research, tools and methods to quantitatively assess the collapse risk of reinforced concrete (RC) special moment frame (SMF) buildings are developed. This primarily includes treatment of ground motions, element model calibration, and treatment of structural modeling uncertainties. The above tools and methods are used to assess the collapse risk of 30 RC SMF buildings designed according to ASCE 7-02. From this study, it is discovered that aspects of the structural design (height, framing layout, etc.) have less impact on the final performance prediction than the aspects of the collapse assessment methodology (structural modeling uncertainties, and spectral shape). This emphasizes the importance of developing a systematic codified assessment method that can be used to demonstrate the performance of a structural system.

Available online: http://peer.berkeley.edu/publications/peer_reports/reports_2007/webR1_PEER708_HASELTONdeierlein.pdf