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Computers and Concrete
  Volume 21, Number 1, January 2018 , pages 055-66
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/cac.2018.21.1.055
 


Effects of consecutive earthquakes on increased damage and response of reinforced concrete structures
Gholamreza Ghodrati Amiri and Elham Rajabi

 
Abstract
    A large main shock may consist of numerous aftershocks with a short period. The aftershocks induced by a large main shock can cause the collapse of a structure that has been already damaged by the preceding main shock. These aftershocks are important factors in structural damages. Furthermore, despite what is often assumed in seismic design codes, earthquakes do not usually occur as a single event, but as a series of strong aftershocks and even fore shocks. For this reason, this study investigates the effect and potential of consecutive earthquakes on the response and behavior of concrete structures. At first, six moment resisting concrete frames with 3, 5, 7, 10, 12 and 15 stories are designed and analyzed under two different records with seismic sequences from real and artificial cases. The damage states of the model frames were then measured by the Park and Ang\'s damage index. From the results of this investigation, it is observed that the sequences of ground motions can almost double the accumulated damage and increased response of structures. Therefore, it is certainly insufficient to ignore this effect in the design procedure of structures. Also, the use of artificial seismic sequences as design earthquake can lead to non-conservative prediction of behavior and damage of structures under real seismic sequences.
 
Key Words
    seismic sequence; damage index; cumulative damage; reinforced concrete structures
 
Address
Gholamreza Ghodrati Amiri and Elham Rajabi: Center of Excellence for Fundamental Studies in Structural Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak, Tehran, Iran
 

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