Seismic reliability assessment and the nonergodicity in the modelling parameter uncertainties

Modelling uncertainty can significantly affect the structural seismic reliability assessment. However, the limit state excursion due to this type of uncertainty may not be described by a Poisson process as it lacks renewal properties with the occurrence of each earthquake event. Furthermore, considering uncertainties related to ground motion representation by employing recorded ground motions together with modelling uncertainties is not a trivial task. Robust fragility assessment, proposed previously by the authors, employs the structural response to recorded ground motion as data in order to update prescribed seismic fragility models. Robust fragility can be extremely efficient for considering also the structural modelling uncertainties by creating a dataset of one-to-one assignments of structural model realizations and as-recorded ground motions. This can reduce the computational effort by more than 1 order of magnitude. However, it should be kept in mind that the fragility concept itself is based on the underlying assumption of Poisson-type renewal. Using the concept of updated robust reliability, considering both the uncertainty in ground motion representation based on as-recorded ground motion and non ergodic modelling uncertainties, the error introduced through structural reliability assessment by using the robust fragility is quantified. It is shown through specific application to an existing RC frame that this error is quite small when the product of the time interval and the standard deviation of failure rate is small and is on the conservative side.     

Fragility and risk assessment of freestanding building contents

Multistorey buildings often have a valuable inventory consisting of objects that their possible damage during an earthquake will cause unacceptable losses. The paper presents a novel, fully performance-based seismic reliability and risk assessment framework for freestanding structural components and contents that can be modelled as rocking rigid blocks. The seismic response of building contents depends on several parameters such as the geometry of the object, the dynamic characteristics of the building and the storey that the object is located. The demand at the storey level is first obtained, and then the response of the contents is calculated using the storey acceleration response history. The demand of the structure is obtained with the aid of a modified version of the Incremental Dynamic Analysis method and subsequently the fragility curves of the rocking building contents are derived for every storey of interest. Different options for fragility assessment are discussed, and the underlying details of the problem are investigated. A simplified approach, where the fragility of the freestanding components and the structure are derived separately, is also presented. The method combines existing fragility curves and thus is suitable for quickly assessing the reliability of a building's inventory, offering sufficient risk estimates.     

隧道工程地震易损性分析研究综述与展望

易损性分析是隧道工程领域防震减灾研究的重要方法。首先,详细综述了国内外隧道地震易损性研究历史与现状;其次,归纳了国内外隧道地震易损性分析主要方法,并总结了各种方法的实际适用性;接着,提出了隧道地震易损性评估步骤,并且讨论了以数值模拟为主要手段的理论易损性曲线建立中的3个关键内容:(1)输入参数确定;(2)破坏状态分级;(3)相关不确定性参数计算;最后,指出该领域一些亟待解决的问题和未来研究发展的方向。结果表明:隧道地震易损性分析能通过考虑相关不确定性因素,反映了隧道在地震荷载作用下的性能,有利于未来的风险评估和损失估算,对基于性能的隧道抗震设计的发展具有重要意义。     

基于下一代性能设计理论的全概率抗震性能评估

对建筑物灾变发生时经济损失和人员伤亡情况做出准确预估是未来建筑结构设计初期需要努力的方向。基于下一代性能化设计理论,通过精细化建模和动力时程分析对结构进行易损性分析,并以此得到抗震性能评估所需的各类地震响应参数,建立RC框架结构全概率抗震性能评估方法。以云南大学力行楼为例,通过地震损失预测得到了该栋建筑的经济损失、修复时间和人员伤亡情况。该方法直观清晰地展示了结果,便于业主及非本专业从业者理解。     

Time-variant fragility analysis of the bridge system considering time-varying dependence among typical component seismic demands

This paper presents a copula technique to develop time-variant seismic fragility curves for corroded bridges at the system level and considers the realistic time-varying dependence among component seismic demands. Based on material deterioration mechanisms and incremental dynamic analysis, the time-evolving seismic demands of components were obtained in the form of marginal probability distributions. The time-varying dependences among bridge components were then captured with the best fitting copula function, which was selected from the commonly used copula classes by the empirical distribution based analysis method. The system time-variant fragility curves at different damage states were developed and the effects of time-varying dependences among components on the bridge system fragility were investigated. The results indicate the time-varying dependence among components significantly affects the time-variant fragility of the bridge system. The copula technique captures the nonlinear dependence among component seismic demands accurately and easily by separating the marginal distributions and the dependence among them.     

Stripe-based fragility analysis of multispan concrete bridge classes using machine learning techniques

A framework for the generation of bridge-specific fragility curves utilizing the capabilities of machine learning and stripe-based approach is presented in this paper. The proposed methodology using random forests helps to generate or update fragility curves for a new set of input parameters with less computational effort and expensive resimulation. The methodology does not place any assumptions on the demand model of various components and helps to identify the relative importance of each uncertain variable in their seismic demand model. The methodology is demonstrated through the case study of a multispan concrete bridge class in California. Geometric, material, and structural uncertainties are accounted for in the generation of bridge numerical models and their fragility curves. It is also noted that the traditional lognormality assumption on the demand model leads to unrealistic fragility estimates. Fragility results obtained by the proposed methodology can be deployed in a risk assessment platform such as HAZUS for regional loss estimation.     

建筑结构地震易损性分析研究综述

地震易损性是指在不同强度水平的地震作用下建筑结构发生各种破坏的条件概率。本文对地震易损性分析的发展历程进行回顾和总结,介绍了地震易损性的相关概念、研究目的和意义以及5个表达工具。随后,针对国内外学者对建筑结构的易损性分析方法开展了系统的梳理和分析,特别是从基于震害调查的经验分析法和基于数值模拟的理论计算法方面展开了重点综述,并简单介绍了一些不常用的方法。最后指出了国内外对建筑结构易损性分析研究的不足和未来的研究方向。     

基于振动台试验的移动通信节点机房蓄电池组地震易损性分析

关键移动通信设备的地震易损性是城市移动通信系统地震灾害预测的基础。本文以移动通信系统节点机房中常用的蓄电池组作为研究对象,通过振动台试验来研究蓄电池组的抗震性能,并获得其地震易损性。试验过程中,首先采用FEMA P695建议的方法从美国PEER强震数据库中遴选出对蓄电池组较为危险的地震动记录作为试验激励,随后逐步增大各条地震动记录的幅值,基于振动台进行增量动力分析。试验后根据蓄电池组的地震损伤特征,定义了其损伤指标和损伤水平,并基于振动台试验数据分析获得了典型蓄电池组的地震易损性曲线。     

Markovian modeling of seismic damage accumulation

Analysis of civil structures at the scale of life‐cycle requires stochastic modeling of degradation. Phenomena causing structures to degrade are typically categorized as aging and point‐in‐time overloads. Earthquake effects are the members of the latter category this study deals with in the framework of performance‐based earthquake engineering (PBEE). The focus is structural seismic reliability, which requires modeling of the stochastic process describing damage progression, because of subsequent events, over time. The presented study explicitly addresses this issue via a Markov‐chain‐based approach, which is able to account for the change in seismic response of damaged structures (i.e. state‐dependent seismic fragility) as well as uncertainty in occurrence and intensity of earthquakes (i.e. seismic hazard). The state‐dependent vulnerability issue arises when the seismic hysteretic response is evolutionary and/or when the damage measure employed is such that the degradation increment probabilistically depends on the conditions of the structure at the time of the shock. The framework set up takes advantage also of the hypotheses of classical probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, allowing to separate the modeling of the process of occurrence of seismic shocks and the effect they produce on the structure. It is also discussed how the reliability assessment, which is in closed‐form, may be virtually extended to describe a generic age‐ and state‐dependent degradation process (e.g. including aging and/or when aftershock risk is of interest). Illustrative applications show the options to calibrate the model and its potential in the context of PBEE. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aftershock seismic assessment taking into account postmainshock residual drifts

This paper introduces and evaluates a methodology for the aftershock seismic assessment of buildings taking explicitly into account residual drift demands after the mainshock (i.e., postmainshock residual interstory drifts, RIDR_o). The methodology is applied to a testbed four‐story steel moment‐resisting building designed with modern seismic design provisions when subjected to a set of near‐fault mainshock–aftershock seismic sequences that induce five levels of RIDR_o. Once the postmainshock residual drift is induced to the building model, a postmainshock incremental dynamic analysis is performed under each aftershock to obtain its collapse capacity and its capacity associated to demolition (i.e., the capacity to reach or exceed a 2% residual drift). The effect of additional sources of stiffness and strength (i.e., interior gravity frames and slab contribution) and the polarity of the aftershocks are examined in this study. Results of this investigation show that the collapse potential under aftershocks strongly depends on the modeling approach (i.e., the aftershock collapse potential is modified when additional sources of lateral stiffness and strength are included in the analytical model). Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the aftershock capacity associated to demolition (i.e., the aftershock collapse capacity associated to a residual interstory drift that leads to an imminent demolition) is lower than that of the aftershock collapse capacity, which mean that this parameter should be a better measure of the building residual capacity against aftershocks. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.