INFLUENCE OF SOIL CONDITIONS ON BUILDING VULNERABILITY

Seismic risk assessment of structures is one of the key elements in estimating and reducing losses that may appear after earthquakes. Building vulnerability quantifies the damages a structure can handle under a known seismic load. Usually, structures are considered to be fixed at the base in the design process, but researchers have highlighted the importance of considering the actual soil conditions in the analysis. In this paper, a nonlinear static analysis (pushover) is performed in SAP 2000, for a reinforced concrete 2-D frame resting on different types of soils. Comparisons between capacity curves, vulnerability curves and between the failure mechanism have been performed. From these comparisons, it was possible to extract some observations concerning the soil condition influence upon building vulnerability and seismic risk for a RC frame. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]