The role of seismic pounding in the optimal selection of ground-motion intensity measures

Abstract EN

To grant quantitative estimates of the expected levels of seismic ground motion as the primary input to seismic hazard assessments, it is vital to characterize the complicated nature of strong motion accelerograms using simple indices.

Over the years, numerous ground-motion parameters have been suggested by researchers for that purpose, and to be used as indices of a ground motion’s damage potential.

Finding a best correlated ground-motion parameter with the damage index, is a main goal of such type of studies.

Minimizing the variability in this correlation is of great importance to determine the expected damage with a higher degree of accuracy.

This paper presents an analysis of different ground-motion intensity measures (IMs) that can be used in assessing the performance of reinforced concrete buildings to test the impact of pounding on the optimal selection of ground-motion IMs.

The occurrence of structural pounding in metropolitan cities is caused by the inadequate gap between adjacent buildings.

Identifying the function in which the seismic pounding performs in selecting the most appropriate ground-motion IM, as an illustration of seismic action in a region of interest, is a main objective of the current study.

Special cases of typical twodimensional adjacent multi-story reinforced concrete buildings are analyzed using a number of natural earthquake time histories.

The results indicated that, based on the number of records, the variability in the gap distance between buildings may lead to the selection of different IMs.