ASCE/SEI 41 Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Buildings: Comparison of the Nonlinear Dynamic Procedure with Other Evaluation Methods

Published

May 22, 2023

Author(s)

Andrew Sen, Dustin Cook, ABBIE LIEL, Tarbin Basnet, Russell Berkowitz, Ariel Creagh, Wassim Ghannoum, Ayse Hortacsu, Insung Kim, Hamid Koodiani, Dawn Lehman, Laura Lowes, Adolfo Matamoros, Farzad Naeim, Siamak Sattar, Rob Smith

Abstract

The U.S. consensus standard for seismic evaluation and retrofit of existing buildings, ASCE/SEI 41, establishes provisions for seismic analysis procedures that vary in complexity and fidelity. Although ASCE/SEI 41 provides detailed nonlinear dynamic procedures, most engineers rely on simpler methods to evaluate building seismic performance, particularly ASCE/SEI 41's linear methods and, more recently, the FEMA P-2018 methodology for evaluating collapse potential. Ideally, these procedures produce similar seismic evaluations. However. each procedure differs in both the approximations used to represent building response and the inherent conservatism, which can impact assessment outcomes and potential retrofit decisions. To quantify these differences, this study considers six reinforced concrete buildings that sustained damage in real earthquakes or in shake table tests, and compares the performance assessed by the ASCE/SEI 41 linear and nonlinear dynamic procedures, as well as the FEMA P-2018 seismic evaluation methodology. The results show, for these highly damaged buildings, that the overall performance level estimated from the ASCE/SEI 41 linear procedures is consistent with observed damage and generally correctly identifies the story with the most damage and the component failure mode. However, the ASCE/SEI 41 linear procedure generally underpredicts drift response and greatly overpredicts peak floor accelerations. Moreover, the linear procedures predict damage in components that would be capacity-protected by the failure of other components in the load path. Results from the FEMA P-2018 methodology for the six buildings provide more distinction between buildings than the ASCE/SEI 41 Collapse Prevention performance level. The results also suggest the FEMA P-2018 limit-state mechanism analysis can provide supplemental information to support and improve the ASCE/SEI 41 linear procedures.

Citation

Earthquake Spectra

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

ASCE/SEI 41, Seismic Analysis, Structural Analysis, Nonlinear Analysis, Dynamic Analysis, Retrofit, Collapse Prevention, Performance Based Earthquake Engineering

Citation

Sen, A. , Cook, D. , LIEL, A. , Basnet, T. , Berkowitz, R. , Creagh, A. , Ghannoum, W. , Hortacsu, A. , Kim, I. , Koodiani, H. , Lehman, D. , Lowes, L. , Matamoros, A. , Naeim, F. , Sattar, S. and Smith, R. (2023), ASCE/SEI 41 Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Buildings: Comparison of the Nonlinear Dynamic Procedure with Other Evaluation Methods, Earthquake Spectra, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=934299 (Accessed December 22, 2024)