A Practical Rapid Screening Method for Evaluating the Seismic Capacity of Low-rise Reinforced Concrete Buildings

Abstract

This study describes a quick and efficient screening method to practically evaluate the seismic capacity of low-rise reinforced concrete (RC) buildings composed of members controlled by both shear and flexure. This study describes curves of the required range of strength to predict earthquake damage as a function of the level of ground motion and building seismic capacity. This method was applied to low-rise RC buildings damaged by an actual earthquake to determine the method' s validity. The method was also verified by comparing its results to those produced by more detailed methods of seismic capacity evaluation: the Japanese standard for seismic capacity evaluation (second- and third-level procedures), nonlinear static analysis, and nonlinear dynamic analysis. Furthermore, the proposed method was applied to eight low-rise RC buildings in Japan and 38 in Korea; the results were compared with the structural seismic capacity index (IS = 0.6), which is the Japanese standard for the critical value required to prevent large-scale earthquake damage to structures in the presence of a ground motion acceleration of 0.23 g. The proposed evaluation method was efficient; it permitted a rapid evaluation of a building' s seismic capacity and provided a means to calculate simply the degree of structural damage to a building due to a certain earthquake strength based on the seismic capacity category. The proposed method can be easily used to calculate the required strength for a low-rise RC building composed of members controlled by both shear and flexure and produce fundamental data for the earthquake preparedness of low-rise RC buildings.