Approximate seismic risk assessment of building structures with explicit consideration of uncertainties

An approximate seismic risk assessment procedure for building structures, which involves pushover analysis that is performed utilizing a deterministic structural model and uncertainty analysis at the level of the equivalent SDOF model, is introduced. Such an approach is computationally significantly less demanding in comparison with procedures based on uncertainty analysis at the level of the entire structure, but still allows for explicit consideration of the effect of record‐to‐record variability and modelling uncertainties. A new feature of the proposed pushover‐based method is the so‐called probabilistic SDOF model. Herein, the proposed methodology is illustrated only for reinforced concrete (RC) frames, although it could be implemented in the case of any building structure, provided that an appropriate probabilistic SDOF model is available. An extensive parametric analysis has been performed within the scope of this study in order to develop a probabilistic SDOF model, which could be used for the seismic risk assessment of both code‐conforming and old, that is, non code‐conforming RC frames. Based on the results of risk analysis for the four selected examples, it is shown that the proposed procedure can provide conservative estimates of seismic risk with reasonable accuracy, in spite of the employed simplifications and the relatively small number of Monte Carlo simulations with Latin hypercube sampling, which are performed at the level of the SDOF model. An indication of the possible default values of dispersion measures for limit‐state intensities in the case of low to medium‐height RC frames is also presented. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.