ENERGY-BASED SEISMIC DESIGN: NEEDS OF ENERGY DAMAGE INDEX VALUES FOR SERVICEABILITY AND ULTIMATE LIMIT STATES FOR GRAVITY DESIGN BUILDINGS?

Abstract

During the past earthquakes, different low ductile failure modes are observed in the gravity design structures and thus, the most of existing damage indices may fail to assess the damage of gravity design structures accurately in referring to the two main performance levels: immediate occupancy and ultimate limit state. Therefore, this study investigates the energy dissipated by the brittle structures and the possible damage indices based on energy for the damage assessment of gravity design frames. In the framework of an Energy-Based Seismic Design Approach, we need the assessment of the Demand and on the Capacity, both expressed in Energy. A methodology for the assessment of the seismic energy demands imposed on structures is already proposed, but not such methodology that makes consensus is proposed for the calculation of the Energy dissipation Capacity avoiding the Hysteretic models. The estimation of the energy expended by the building during an earthquake excitation is a tricky issue. For this purpose, this study considers the wavelet based energy estimation and compares it with different approaches for measuring the damages of a structure: the dominant inelastic period of a building and the more classical measure, the inter-story drift. IDA analysis are performed in energy, drift and inelastic period. Furthermore, the damage assessment results based on the expended energy for three gravity design buildings are compared and discussed relatively to the results expressed in inelastic period and drift. Finally, this study concludes that no significant effects of number of inelastic cycles to the damage assessment results for low ductile structures. However, this study also highlights the effects of number of inelastic cycles to the damage for medium and high ductile structures.