Search

The realistic determination of damage estimation and building performance depends on target displacements in performance-based earthquake engineering. In this study, target displacements were obtained by performing pushover analysis for a sample reinforced-concrete building model, taking into account 60 different peak ground accelerations for each of the five different stories. Three different target displacements were obtained for damage estimation, such as damage limitation (DL), significant damage (SD), and near collapse (NC), obtained for each peak ground acceleration for five different numbers of stories, respectively. It aims to develop an artificial neural network (ANN)-based sustainable model to predict target displacements under different seismic risks for mid-rise regular reinforced-concrete buildings, which make up a large part of the existing building stock, using all the data obtained. For this purpose, a hybrid structure was established with the particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO), and the network structure’s hyper parameters were optimized. Three different hybrid models were created in order to predict the target displacements most successfully. It was found that the ANN established with particles with the best position revealed by the hybrid models produced successful results in the calculation of the performance score. The created hybrid models produced 99% successful results in DL estimation, 99% in SD estimation, and 99% in NC estimation in determining target displacements in mid-rise regular reinforced-concrete buildings. The hybrid model also revealed which parameters should be used in ANN for estimating target displacements under different seismic risks.

Significant structural damages due to earthquakes reveal the importance of seismic design provisions. This paper presents a comparison between the seismic design provisions of Albania, Croatia, Iran, and Turkey for the design of mid- rise reinforced-concrete (RC) frames. Information on the historical development of the considered provisions are given. The code provisions are compared, illustrating the main differences in the minimum requirements for column and beam detailing and analysis for mid-rise RC frames. 4-story, 5- story, and 6-story buildings are designed according to each design code, and their performance is evaluated comparatively by using a displacement- based adaptive pushover procedure and eigenvalue analysis. It is observed that recent Turkish code has the highest and Albanian code has the lowest level of requirements in terms of member size and reinforcement detailing. The considered models indicate 15%, 20% and 50%, lower period values than the Croatia, Iran and Albania buildings, respectively. Additionally, building models per Croatia, Iran and Albania codes have 30%, 35% and 65% less base shear capacity when compared to Turkish building codes. Building models per Croatia and Iran codes indicate similar properties both in terms of strength and stiffness.

Although it is impractical to avert subsequent natural disasters, advances in simulation science and seismological studies make it possible to lessen the catastrophic damage. There currently exists in many urban areas a large number of structures, which are prone to damage by earthquakes. These were constructed without the guidance of a national seismic code, either before it existed or before it was enforced. For instance, in Istanbul, Turkey, as a high seismic area, around 90% of buildings are substandard, which can be generalized into other earthquakeprone regions in Turkey. The reliability of this building stock resulting from earthquake-induced collapse is currently uncertain. Nonetheless, it is also not feasible to perform a detailed seismic vulnerability analysis on each building as a solution to the scenario, as it will be too complicated and expensive. This indicates the necessity of a reliable, rapid, and computationally easy method for seismic vulnerability assessment, commonly known as Rapid Visual Screening (RVS). In RVS methodology, an observational survey of buildings is performed, and according to the data collected during the visual inspection, a structural score is calculated without performing any structural calculations to determine the expected damage of a building and whether the building needs detailed assessment. Although this method might save time and resources due to the subjective/qualitative judgments of experts who performed the inspection, the evaluation process is dominated by vagueness and uncertainties, where the vagueness can be handled adequately through the fuzzy set theory but do not cover all sort of uncertainties due to its crisp membership functions. In this study, a novel method of rapid visual hazard safety assessment of buildings against earthquake is introduced in which an interval type-2 fuzzy logic system (IT2FLS) is used to cover uncertainties. In addition, the proposed method provides the possibility to evaluate the earthquake risk of the building by considering factors related to the building importance and exposure. A smartphone app prototype of the method has been introduced. For validation of the proposed method, two case studies have been selected, and the result of the analysis presents the robust efficiency of the proposed method.

Recently, the demand for residence and usage of urban infrastructure has been increased, thereby resulting in the elevation of risk levels of human lives over natural calamities. The occupancy demand has rapidly increased the construction rate, whereas the inadequate design of structures prone to more vulnerability. Buildings constructed before the development of seismic codes have an additional susceptibility to earthquake vibrations. The structural collapse causes an economic loss as well as setbacks for human lives. An application of different theoretical methods to analyze the structural behavior is expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, introducing a rapid vulnerability assessment method to check structural performances is necessary for future developments. The process, as mentioned earlier, is known as Rapid Visual Screening (RVS). This technique has been generated to identify, inventory, and screen structures that are potentially hazardous. Sometimes, poor construction quality does not provide some of the required parameters, in this case, the RVS process turns into a tedious scenario. Hence, to tackle such a situation, multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods for the seismic vulnerability assessment opens a new gateway. The different parameters required by RVS can be taken in MCDM. MCDM evaluates multiple conflicting criteria in decision making in several fields. This paper has aimed to bridge the gap between RVS and MCDM. Furthermore, to define the correlation between these techniques, implementation of the methodologies from Indian, Turkish, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) codes has been done. The effects of seismic vulnerability of structures have been observed and compared.