Resilient Reinforced Masonry Buildings: Risk-based System-level Seismic Design Approaches

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Recent earthquakes worldwide have demonstrated that, although modern building design codes have generally succeeded in their intent of limiting fatalities in new construction, they have done little to limit socioeconomic costs. The earthquakes in Chile (2010), New Zealand (2011), and Japan (2011) all caused severe losses that shook the national economies and psyches. As people in affected communities have experienced, buildings that satisfy the intent of the building code may not be safe to occupy after the earthquake, and it may be more economical to demolish these buildings than to repair them. According to a 2013 report* commissioned by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, a substantial portion of Canada's building stock will experience severe damage or complete collapse during a major earthquake. It is expected that a major earthquake in the Quebec City-Montreal-Ottawa corridor will result in losses of more than C$60 billion, and nearly C$75 billion if a major earthquake were to occur in British Columbia. The three interrelated focus areas of the proposed research program are designed to develop resilient reinforced masonry (RM) building systems that will experience limited or easy-to-repair damage following major seismic events. Focus Area I will involve advanced hybrid (computer modelling combined with real-time physical testing) simulation of buildings constructed of RM shear wall with damage-tolerant boundary elements. This focus area will facilitate quantifying the interaction between component-level (individual wall) design characteristics and different system-level (complete building) aspects influencing the overall building seismic performance. Focus Area II will include testing complete controlled-rocking RM buildings under different levels of seismic demands utilizing shake table equipment. The research in this area will provide proof-of-performance data for controlled-rocking walls at the system level. Focus Area III will aim at developing probabilistic risk assessment analysis tools in order to facilitate quantification of RM building resilience following different levels of seismic events. The $130 billion Canadian building market is an integral part of Canada's construction industry, which employs over a million people, and consumes 40% of the country's energy and 50% of its primary resources. This market is in need of resilient systems for the low- and mid-rise building segments similar to the innovative solutions that will be developed in the proposed research program. By adopting and integrating such innovative building systems with risk-based design approaches, Canada's infrastructure resilience will be significantly improved and Canadian communities will be provided with economical, safe and low-risk buildings when subjected to natural hazards. *http://assets.ibc.ca/Documents/Studies/IBC-EQ-Study-Summary.pdf