Analysis of the damage potential of the Kocaeli (Turkey) earthquake of 17 August 1999

摘要

The damage inflicted by the Kocaeli earthquake on structures ingeneral, and relatively modern RC buildings in particular, is perhaps the worst seen in many years, and certainly the worst in Europe in recent history. Early reports attributed the damage to construction quality and lack of seismic dertaily. The purpose of this short paper is not to dispute this claim, but rather to widen the discussion and shed light on other possible contributing factors. It is indicated, by well-verified inelastic dynamic analysis, that the demand imposed by some of the records measrued in the severely affected area is exceptionally high. A full-scale model structure recently tested at the Joint Research Centre, Italy, is used for comparison purposes.