Seismic fragility of steel moment-resisting frames in Vancouver and Montreal designed in the 1960s, 1980s, and 2010

Abstract

Typical steel moment-resisting frames (MRF) of six-storey buildings in Vancouver and Montreal were designed for three different provisions of the National Building Code of Canada (1960s, 1980s, and 2010). Numerical models were developed in OpenSees to understand the seismic performance of the structures. These models accounted for strength and stiffness degradation through appropriate representations of the beam–column connection behaviours, which were calibrated against experimental results available in the literature. The behaviour of the buildings was evaluated through pushover and nonlinear time history analyses. The pushover analysis results showed that the 1960s and 2010 steel MRFs of both cities exhibited strong-column-weak-beam failure mode. The 1980s steel MRFs of both cities showed soft-storey mechanism. Fragility curves were developed for the steel MRFs based on the seismic demands evaluated using nonlinear time history analyses, which can be used for regional seismic impact assessment studies in the future.