Sensitivity of the Fragility Curve on Type of Analysis Methods, Applied Ground Motions and Their Selection Techniques

Abstract

AbstractFragility curves are the primary way of assessing seismic risk for a building with numerous studies focused on deriving these fragility curves and how to account for the inherent uncertainty in the seismic assessment. This study focuses on a three-story steel moment frame structure and performs a fragility assessment of the building using a new approach called SPO2FRAG (Static Pushover to Fragility) that is based on pushover analysis. This new approach is further compared and contrasted against traditional nonlinear dynamic analysis approaches like Incremental Dynamic Analysis and Multiple Stripe Analysis. The sensitivity of the resulting fragility curves is studied against multiple parameters including uncertainties in ground motion, the type of analysis method used and the choice of curve fitting technique. All these factors influence the fragility curve behavior and this study assesses the impact of changing these parameters.