Seismic Fragility Analysis of the Smithsonian Institute Museum Support Center

Abstract

This paper presents the seismic fragility assessment of the Smithsonian Institute Museum Support Center (MSC), which sustained appreciable damage during the 2011 Virginia Earthquake. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element model (FEM) for the building was created and validated using measured dynamic characteristics determined from field vibration test data. Two suites of bi-directional ground motions at different hazard levels were applied to the FEM to generate fragility curves for structural as well as nonstructural (storage cabinets) damage. The effect of brace yielding strength on structural and nonstructural damage is also investigated to provide recommendations for future retrofit. The fragility curves show that the spectral acceleration to cause structural damage to the building is not high. Due to low seismicity, however, the probability for the structure to be damaged at the design basis earthquake is small. Nevertheless, the probability for non-structural damage is considerable, which is an important issue related to the seismic performance of the building.

Seismic Fragility Analysis of Steel Liquid Storage Tanks Using Earthquake Ground Motions Recorded in Korea

“…The analysis results of these studies showed that earthquake damages to structures varied with different ground motion properties. In addition, for an accurate seismic fragility analysis of structures, numerous studies on seismic fragility assessments using analytical models [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] have utilized real ground motion records from world-wide well-known earthquakes. However, these records may not reflect the characteristics of a specific region.…”

“…Based on the results, probabilistic seismic demand models (PSDMs) are constructed by linear regression of the seismic responses and corresponding values [41]. The PSDMs have been broadly utilized to derive the analytical seismic fragility curves of various structures [7,10,16,39,[42][43][44][45][46].…”

Assessment of the 2011 Virginia Earthquake Damage and Seismic Fragility Analysis of the Washington Monument

“…They scaled these motions by applying transfer functions to adjust them for the tectonically inactive CEUS environment. Setting the DBE and MCE uniform hazard response spectrum (UHRS) developed by USGS at the bedrock level of the Washington Monument (Site Class A) as the target spectrum, the geometric mean of the horizontal components of these bedrock motions are uniformly scaled to match the target, and 22 sets of motions with the least overall error between the scaled spectra and the target spectrum (over periods smaller than 2 sec) are selected for the structural fragility analysis in this study (Chu et al 2016). A site response analysis is subsequently performed using Deepsoil (Hashash et al 2012) to propagate the bedrock motions to the foundation level (FL) and ground surface (GS) using the shear wave velocity profile of the site (shown in Figure 9b).…”