Evaluation of seismic assessment procedures for determining deformation demands in RC wall buildings

This work evaluates the performance of a number of seismic assessment procedures when applied to a case study reinforced concrete (RC) wall building. The performance of each procedure is evaluated through its ability to accurately predict deformation demands, specifically, roof displacement, inter-storey drift ratio and wall curvatures are considered as the key engineering demand parameters. The different procedures include Direct Displacement-Based Assessment, nonlinear static analysis and nonlinear dynamic analysis. For the latter two approaches both lumped and distributed plasticity modelling are examined. To thoroughly test the different approaches the case study building is considered in different configurations to include the effects of unequal length walls and plan asymmetry. Recommendations are made as to which methods are suited to different scenarios, in particular focusing on the balance that needs to be made between accurate prediction of engineering demand parameters and the time and expertise required to undertake the different procedures. All methods are shown to have certain merits, but at the same time a number of the procedures are shown to have areas requiring further development. This work also highlights a number of key aspects related to the seismic response of RC wall buildings that may significantly impact the results of an assessment. These include the influence of higher-mode effects and variations in spectral shape with ductility demands.