Rapid seismic screening of reinforced concrete buildings using energy-based principles

Seismic evaluation methods were developed and employed in seismic design codes for the purpose of avoiding life loss in the aftermath of earthquakes. The high death and economic toll from previous earthquakes highlight the importance of this evaluation for the residential structures in Turkey. However, the task of evaluation is challenging due to the abundance of structurally flawed buildings. Therefore, use of quick screening techniques is essential. Current rapid screening methods rely either on force or displacement-based approaches, which fail to employ some important parameters of earthquakes such as earthquake duration, frequency content, and energy dissipation capacity. Another approach which has been under development since the 1980s, the energy-based approach, was proven to be more successful in employing these parameters. Thus, the aim of this study is to develop a rapid seismic screening method for residential reinforced concrete structures that employs energy-based principles and evaluates the performance using the guidelines of the Turkish Seismic Code. A MATLAB program, which executes a modified version of the energy-based design algorithm proposed by Yalçın et al., was developed to conduct a parametric study related to the parameters determining the earthquake energy demand and energy dissipation capacity of structures. Additional parameters related to structural irregularities and deficiencies were also employed in this study. The results of the parametric study were subjected to statistical analyses to produce a simple model for estimating the damage score of the structures under various scenarios, which in turn was used to predict the performance level of the structures.