Fragility functions for a reinforced concrete structure subjected to earthquake and tsunami in sequence

Petrone, Crescenzo, Rossetto, Tiziana, Baiguera, Marco, De la Barra Bustamante, Camilo and Ioannou, Ioanna (2020) Fragility functions for a reinforced concrete structure subjected to earthquake and tsunami in sequence. Engineering Structures, 205, [110120]. (doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2019.110120).

Abstract

Many coastal regions lying on subduction zones are likely to experience the catastrophic effects of cascading earthquake and tsunami observed in recent events, e.g., 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. The influence of earthquake on the response of the structure to tsunami is difficult to quantify through damage observations from past events, since they only provide information on the combined effects of both perils. Hence, the use of analytical methodologies is fundamental. This paper investigates the response of a reinforced concrete frame subjected to realistic ground motion and tsunami inundation time histories that have been simulated considering a seismic source representative of the M9 2011 Tohoku earthquake event. The structure is analysed via nonlinear time-history analyses under (a) tsunami inundation only and (b) earthquake ground motion and tsunami inundation in sequence. Comparison of these analyses shows that there is a small impact of the preceding earthquake ground shaking on the tsunami fragility. The fragility curves constructed for the cascading hazards show less than 15% reduction in the median estimate of tsunami capacity compared to the fragility functions for tsunami only. This outcome reflects the fundamentally different response of the structure to the two perils: while the ground motion response of the structure is governed by its strength, ductility and stiffness, the tsunami performance of the structure is dominated by its strength. It is found that the ground shaking influences the tsunami displacement response of the considered structure due to the stiffness degradation induced in the ground motion cyclic response, but this effect decreases with increasing tsunami force.

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Contributors

Author: Marco Baiguera

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