Experimental and analytical seismic assessment of buildings with plan irregularities

This thesis presents a detailed seismic assessment framework that covers verification of analytical modeling by reliable experimental results, damage quantification method and vulnerability analysis for RC structures with plan irregularities.; A detailed description on the analytical modeling and the seismic assessment of a full-scale irregular RC test structure is presented. An extensive pre-test assessment is performed to investigate the effect of irregularities on the response of the test structure in addition to the estimation of its capacity and dynamic characteristics. Various pre-test models with different assumptions are compared and discussed. The agreement between the analysis and test results on the global response level is very good. Additionally, the role of the pre-test analysis in leading the test preparation is presented and shown to be invaluable for steering the test sequence.; Motivated by the observation that existing damage indices do not take into account the bidirectional and torsional response effects, a new spatial damage index is proposed. The derivation, which is based on decomposing the 3D structure into planar frames, is outlined. Local damage index that is sensitive to out-of-plane responses is proposed and a method to combine local damage indexes is presented. The index is verified by comparing its damage assessment result with that of a conventional damage index.; A methodology for the derivation of vulnerability curves for structures with plan irregularities is developed. In order to represent the damage state of the irregular structures, the spatial damage index is adopted as a response variable. A systematic methodology to exclude unrealistic analysis results from the statistical treatment of the response variable is proposed and the feasibility of using lognormal probability distribution for bounded response variables is investigated. The procedure is illustrated through the reference derivation of fragility curves for the irregular RC building under bidirectional earthquake loadings.