A STATISTICAL PROCEDURE FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF SEISMIC PERFORMANCE OF EXISTING REINFORCED CONCRETE BUILDINGS IN TURKEY

摘要

A procedure is developed to assess the seismic performance of low- to mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings using a statistical approach and the seismic damage database compiled from recent earthquakes in Turkey. The database is based on the post-earthquake damage evaluations conducted after the 1999 earthquakes in Turkey and contain detailed information on some selected buildings that suffered various degrees of damage. The detailed information collected for each building were processed and analyzed in order to investigate and establish correlations between the building attributes that are believed to affect the seismic performance and the observed damage. In this procedure, the building to be evaluated is required to be visited to collect data on its structural layout, plan and vertical member dimensions, number of stories and architectural features such as soft stories and overhangs. A damage score, obtained from a discriminant function utilizing the building-specific information, is compared with a cutoff value to arrive at a decision regarding its performance. Seismic performance evaluation is carried out in two stages, first for life safety and then for immediate occupancy performance levels. The building is then classified as safe or unsafe depending on the results of these evaluations. Since the cutoff values were derived based on the seismic damage database compiled from a particular earthquake and at a particular site, further endeavor was devoted to the improvements and adjustments that would allow the application of the proposed procedure to other regions. For this purpose the variability of ground motion with respect to the soil properties and the distance to source were incorporated into the analysis. The sites are classified according to Turkish Seismic Code's definitions based on the shear wave velocity. The procedure is verified through application to a number of buildings that were subjected to some of the recent earthquakes in Turkey.