Life-cycle performance enhancement of deteriorating buildings under recurrent seismic hazards

Abstract

Buildings are susceptible to reduced performance due to deterioration and recurrent extreme events. Hence, a life-cycle sustainability and resilience enhancement approach is proposed herein for reinforced concrete structures under environmental deterioration and recurrent extreme events. The framework consists of five parts: (1) extreme event modeling to characterize the occurrence uncertainty of the recurrent extreme events, (2) deterioration modeling to assess deterioration initiation and propagation during the investigated time, (3) structural modeling to assess structural response given deterioration and natural hazards, (4) life-cycle sustainability and resilience assessment to determine the consequences, downtimes and functionality during the investigated time given mitigation alternatives, and (5) decision-making to select the optimal retrofit alternative given life-cycle sustainability and resilience performance by utilizing utility decision theory and multi-criteria decision making. The proposed framework is illustrated on an intermediate moment resisting reinforced concrete frame structure prone to carbonation-induced deterioration and stochastically recurring seismic hazards. The methodology highlights the importance of considering life-cycle sustainability and resilience and provides a tool to effectively manage structures under deterioration and recurring extreme events.