Fragility Functions for RC Shear Wall Buildings in Australia

Abstract

This research investigates the development of analytical fragility functions for reinforced concrete shear wall buildings in Australia. A building stock for the city of Melbourne is used in conducting an assessment of these types of structures. The assessment uses the best information available for selecting the building parameters applicable to the low-to-moderate seismic region, site soil class, expected earthquake ground motions, and site response. The capacity spectrum method is used to derive vulnerability functions for low-, mid-, and high-rise reinforced concrete shear wall buildings. Although there is a paucity of earthquake damage data available in Australia, some comparisons are made using the results from the fragility functions derived here to the damage data from the Newcastle earthquake in 1989.