Effect of sequential earthquakes on evaluation of non-linear response of 3D RC MRFs

Most of the existing seismic codes for RC buildings consider only a scenario earthquake for analysis, often characterized by the response spectrum at the specified location. However, any real earthquake event often involves occurrences of multiple earthquakes within a few hours or days, possessing similar or even higher energy than the first earthquake. This critically impairs the rehabilitation measures thereby resulting in the accumulation of structural damages for subsequent earthquakes after the first earthquake. Also, the existing seismic provisions account for the non-linear response of an RC building frame implicitly by specifying a constant response modification factor (R) in a linear elastic design. However, the 'R' specified does not address the changes in structural configurations of RC moment-resisting frames (RC MRFs) viz., building height, number of bays present, bay width, irregularities arising out of mass and stiffness changes, etc. resulting in changed dynamic characteristics of the structural system. Hence, there is an imperative need to assess the seismic performance under sequential earthquake ground motions, considering the adequacy of code-specified 'R' in the representation of dynamic characteristics of RC buildings. Therefore, the present research is focused on the evaluation of the non-linear response of medium-rise 3D RC MRFs with and without vertical irregularities under bi-directional sequential earthquake ground motions using non-linear dynamic analysis. It is evident from the results that collapse probability increases, and 'R' reduces significantly for various RC MRFs subjected to sequential earthquakes, pronouncing the vulnerability and inadequacy of estimation of design base shear by code-specified 'R' under sequential earthquakes.