Predicting how future earthquakes will affect structural performance in a particular region is a challenge due to the unpredictable nature of earthquakes and inherent uncertainties in construction materials and the geometry of structures. This study considers building-to-building variabilities as inputs in an existing Response Surface Methodology (RSM) that are based on the Design of Experiment (DoE) technique to quickly determine the structural fragility of a region. As it is impractical to analyse each individual structure in a region in detail, this study addresses the issue by collecting a set of building parameters and using screening design to evaluate the most significant building parameters in the overall seismic performance. Instead of performing building-to-building analyses, the propagation of uncertainty in building-to-building variability can now be performed using a polynomial response surface metamodel. The metamodel is a function of the response of the building, and a set of significant parameters. This study aims to obtain the fragility of a collection of buildings with the help of the existing RSM by considering variability in structural parameters that can represent the overall structural geometric and material properties within a region. A case study is conducted for the collection of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in the city of Silchar, located in Northeast India, which is one of the most seismically active regions of the country. The fragility curve developed with significant building parameters from RSM has been compared with that of the conventional method using Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA), and the match of the result confirms the accuracy of fragility assessment using RSM.

Pounding refers to the collision of adjacent structures during strong ground motions. Actually when an earthquake occurs, the structures which are having different dynamic properties vibrate out of phase and collide with each other resulting in heavy damage of life and property. The main reason behind pounding between structures is the insufficient separation distance provided between the buildings. Different countries having different codes provide different rules and regulations regarding the separation distance that needs to be given between the structures to prevent pounding but the insufficient land area and high land prices especially in metropolitan cities, the separation distance is bound to be given very less in order to have effective use of land area during construction. So, in order to prevent the structures from colliding with each other, some cost effective mitigation measures like RCC cross bracings and RC shear wall have been discussed in this study. SAP2000 v19 software has been used for modelling and analysis of the structures. This study includes two types of frame structures i.e. (i) bare frame structure and (ii) structure having infill walls in the form of diagonal strut in it. The mitigation methods such as use of shear wall and bracings proved to be effective in all the cases. Also the best location of bracings and shear wall has been studied by placing them at various locations in the structures and observe the amount of displacement that is being reduced.

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