Life-cycle cost assessment of inelastic buildings with tuned mass dampers in seismic areas

Abstract

A methodology is presented for evaluating, in a life-cycle cost (LCC) perspective, the seismic effectiveness of passive tuned mass dampers (TMDs) on inelastic building structures. Traditional assessment criteria reveal that TMD performance largely depends on the extent of response non-linearity and therefore on the seismic intensity level, proving satisfactory under moderate earthquakes but negligible under strong ones. Yet those criteria cannot provide a concise measure of control advantages, since they cannot weigh, on a physically sound, economic basis, the relative impact of different hazard levels. Through estimating the occurrence probability and expected lifetime cost of future seismic damages and losses, a multi-hazard LCC approach is here proposed as an efficient alternative for TMD cost-effectiveness assessment. An illustrative example shows that retrofitting a TMD on typical low-rise steel office structures in high seismicity regions may significantly reduce the building lifetime cost despite the detrimental effect observed under collapse limit state.