Combination Procedure for Seismic Correlation Coefficient in Fragility Curves of Multiple Components

For the important safety system, two or more units of identical equipment or redundant components with similar function were installed to prevent abnormal failure. If the failure probability of such equipment is independent, this redundancy could increase the system safety remarkably. However, if the failure of each component is highly correlated by installing in a structure or experiencing an earthquake event, the expected redundancy effect will decrease. Therefore, the seismic correlation of the equipment should be evaluated quantitatively for the seismic probabilistic safety assessment. The correlation effect can be explained in the procedure of constructing fragility curves. In this study, several methodologies to quantify the seismic correlation in the failure probability calculation for multiple components were reviewed and two possible ways considering the realistic situation were selected. Simple examples were tested to check the applicability of these methods. The conversion method between these two methods was suggested to render the evaluation using the advantages of each method possible.