Fragility assessment of the connection used in small-scale residential steel house subjected to lateral wind loads

Abstract

Typhoon disasters risk assessment is needed for small-scale residential houses with less than two stories or less than 500 square meters, since they accounted for about 55% of total buildings in Korea. Therefore, this study was focused on the evaluation of wind fragility for this small-scale lightweight steel frame structure when subjected to lateral wind loads. For this purpose, Monte Carlo Simulation technique was used to derive wind fragility based on random wind load parameters and experimental data of resistance capacity of the connection in this type of structure. Finally, the structural safety of a small-scale lightweight steel house was evaluated, and the fragility was derived. Results show that wind direction parallel to long dimension of structure was the most critical condition. Additionally, the median probability of failure occurs at a very high wind speed. Further research should focus on study with detail structural analysis to narrow down the uncertainty in this study.