Assessing Seismic Collapse Safety of Modern Reinforced Concrete Moment Frame Buildings

A primary goal of seismic design requirements of building codes is to protect the life safety of building inhabitants during extreme earthquakes. First and foremost, this requires that the likelihood of structural collapse be at an acceptably low level. However, building codes and standards are empirical in nature, which results in the collapse safety of new buildings not being well understood.

In this research, we develop the tools and methods to quantitatively assess the collapse risk of reinforced concrete (RC) special moment frame (SMF) buildings designed by the 2003 International Building Code. While RC SMF buildings are the focus on this study, the methodology and many of the tools can be used to assess any type of structural system. This rigorous analytical collapse assessment requires careful consideration of many issues from ground motions to structural modeling to quantification of uncertainty.