Optimal maintenance strategies for structures in seismic zones

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper an approach is developed for establishing optimal maintenance (repair) strategies of structures in seismic zones. The approach is based on expected future costs and the main decision variable is a damage threshold for repair given an acceptable reliability level. It is considered that structural damage accumulates over a number of earthquakes until a threshold is reached or exceeded, after which the structure is repaired so that there is no remaining damage. A Markov model is implemented for such a process of damage accumulation during future earthquakes. An algorithm is proposed for computing non‐linear structural response to earthquakes using a damage function model. This algorithm is used to evaluate transition probabilities between damage states based on simulations of future earthquakes of given intensities. Expressions are derived for evaluating expected life‐cycle damage costs and structural reliability as a function of time and of the damage threshold for repair. As an application, a single‐degree‐of‐freedom structural system is studied. In addition, the paper addresses the case of instrumented structures where information from earthquake response records is available. Such information is incorporated into the formulation for maintenance strategies by means of a Bayesian approach for updating the probability distribution of structural damage and of non‐linear behaviour parameters so that predictions about costs and reliability are improved. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.