Buildings Subjected to Recurring Earthquakes: A Tale of Three Cities

Abstract

Three different buildings built according to the same design have experienced three different near-field strong ground motions over a period of 11 years in three different cities in Turkey. The input motion was known for each because strong-motion sensors were located adjacent or close to the buildings. We examine the performance of the five-story, reinforced concrete-frame buildings. Bidirectional nonlinear time history and nonlinear static analyses on 3-D analytical models are performed. The principal focus is to assess whether the analytical model of the buildings could indicate column-beam damage consistent with that observed at the sites after the earthquakes. Results illustrate that nonlinear time history analyses are capable of indicating the occurrence of shear failure in captive columns; however, they overestimate the global damage. The overestimation is greater where the building sustained a pulse-type motion without significant distress. It appears that difference between visual observations and analytical results persists.