Seismic safety of reinforced concrete buildings in Japan

摘要

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the seismic safety of reinforced concrete buildings designed according to a new Japanese design guideline which is based on an ultimate strength design concept. Two cities in high seismicity areas in Japan are assumed as the sites for the building. For simulating earthquake ground motions at the sites, recently developed probabilistic methods which account for the time-varying characteristics of earthquake intensity and frequency content are used. The seismic safety of the designed building is evaluated in terms of the probabilities of exceeding various design thresholds during a lifetime of the building.