SEISMIC VULNERABILITY REDUCTION THROUGH CODAL DESIGN OF URM INFILLED RC BUILDINGS

Abstract

Earthquake may cause extensive losses in which structural damage plays an important role. One of the most important elements in evaluating the seismic damage to structures is the fragility curve. The fragility curves for certain type of building structure are used to represent the probabilities that the structural damages, under various level of seismic excitation, exceed specified damage states. In other words, each point on the curve represents the probability that the spectral displacement under certain level of ground shaking is larger than the displacement associated with the certain damage state. In this study, Fragility curves are evaluated for the low-rise buildings with and without URM infilled masonry. The buildings are designed for gravity load and earthquake load along with gravity load separately. An effort has been given to investigate the trend of the value of the damage probability for different building structures and to investigate the effect of infill also. In this study 4 buildings from 1 storey to 4 storeys with same plan dimension are designed for gravity load and again for earthquake load along with gravity load. Each building is modeled twice, with and without infill. Finally the fragility curves are drawn for each building with different damage classes and a comparative investigation has made to judge the trend of damage probability for different buildings.