Assessment of seismic fragility of reinforced concrete buildings retrofitted with steel bracing elements: A numerical study

In this study, the effectiveness of reinforcement with steel diagonal elements in a reinforced concrete building was investigated. A typical reinforced concrete building with ground floor+4 floors was designed for the numerical study. All column dimensions were 400×400 mm, all beam dimensions were 250×500 mm, transverse reinforcement spacing in column and beam elements was 100 mm and floor heights were 3 meters. The existing building was strengthened with X steel diagonal elements and two models were obtained. Nonlinear static pushover and incremental dynamic analyses of the buildings were performed. 11 earthquake records were used for incremental dynamic analyses. The acceleration amplitudes of these records were increased from 0.1 g to 1.0 g by 0.1 g and the analyses were performed. In order to model the nonlinear behaviour, lumped plastic hinges were assumed at the ends of the structural elements. As a result of nonlinear static pushover and incremental dynamic analyses of the buildings, capacity curves, maximum responses, inter-storey drifts, hysteretic curves at the ends of selected columns and damage patterns were obtained. Fragility curves were created by considering the damage levels in the buildings. According to the results, the average inter-storey drifts of the building strengthened using X steel diagonal elements decreased by approximately 90% compared to its current condition for 1.0 g PGA, while the damage probability and vibration period were also significantly reduced. In addition, the base shear force encountered by the strengthened building increased more than 4 times compared to its current condition.