Seismic assessment of concrete buildings reinforced with shape memory alloy materials in different stories

Abstract

SummaryShape memory alloy (SMA) is a unique material with many beneficial characteristics such as superelasticity and excellent resistance against corrosion. However, the high expenses related to the material costs and difficulties associated with implementation of SMAs in reinforced concrete (RC) structures may limit their usage. To decrease the costs related to SMA installation, this paper investigates the seismic performance of RC moment‐resisting frames with the intention of specifying the optimal stories for SMA utilization. To this end, RC frames with 3, 5, 7, and 9 stories are modeled and various cases are considered for SMA locations in different story levels. For each building, 4 different cases are considered including a frame with regular steel reinforcement (Steel), a frame with SMAs in all story levels (full SMA), and 2 remaining cases consist of frames with SMAs in bottom and middle story levels only. In the first part, nonlinear dynamic time history analyses are conducted to evaluate the base shear, roof displacement, interstory, and residual drift demands of the structures using 10 ground‐motion records. In the second part, the incremental dynamic analysis is employed to assess the entire range of structural dynamic behavior. By using the generated data from incremental dynamic analysis procedure, fragility evaluation is conducted on multiple limit states to provide a comprehensive performance assessment for each case. The results indicate that frames with SMA in their lower story levels performed similar to frames equipped with SMA in all story levels. However, the fragility assessments show the better performance of frames with SMA in their bottom stories versus other cases. On this basis, the costs associated with SMA fabrication could be reduced noticeably (nearly two‐thirds) without sacrificing the overall performance of the frame and its post‐earthquake serviceability.