Stochastic seismic collapse and reliability assessment of high‐rise reinforced concrete structures

Abstract

SummaryTo provide knowledge beyond the conventional engineering insights, attention in this work is focused on a comprehensive framework for the stochastic seismic collapse analysis and reliability assessment of large complex reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Three key notions are emphasized: the refined finite element modeling and analysis approach towards structural collapse, a physical random ground motion model, and an energy‐based structural collapse criterion. First, the softening of concrete material, which substantially contributes to the collapse of RC structures, is modeled by the stochastic damage constitutive model. Second, the physical random ground motion model is introduced to quantitatively describe the stochastic properties of the earthquake ground motions. And then the collapse‐resistance performance of a certain RC structure can be systematically evaluated on the basis of the probability density evolution method combining with the proposed structural collapse criterion. Numerical results regarding a prototype RC frame‐shear wall structure indicate that the randomness from ground motions dramatically affects the collapse behaviors of the structure and even leads to entirely different collapse modes. The proposed methodology is applicable in better understanding of the anti‐collapse design and collapse prediction of large complex RC buildings.