Refined Seismic Design Method for RC Frame Structures to Increase the Collapse Resistant Capacity

Abstract

In current structural design codes, elastic vibration modes are used for seismic design. However, when a structure is subjected to strong earthquakes and inelastic response or even when collapse damage is observed, the damage state is always unevenly distributed along the height of the structure. Such a phenomenon implies the materials of stories with elastic response and slight damage are not fully utilized. In this paper, a new practical and effective method, which improves collapse resistant capacity by making full use of materials, is proposed for reinforcement concrete (RC) frame structures at a structural collapse state. In this method, incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) is used to evaluate the structural collapse capacity. Tangent_ratio (TR) is formulated based on the IDA curves, and the longitudinal reinforcement of columns is modified based on the TR to achieve uniform distribution of damage along the height of building. Fewer variables are optimized and constraints of the provisions in current codes are considered, which makes the proposed procedure more computationally efficient and practical. The proposed method is employed on a 5-story RC frame structure to illustrate its feasibility and practicality. Comparison work indicates that the refined seismic design method can significantly increase the collapse resistant capacity and decrease the maximum inter-story drift ratio response under strong ground motion in a few iterative steps without a cost increase.