SHM-Based Seismic Performance Assessment of High-Rise Buildings under Long-Period Ground Motion

Abstract

Long-period ground motions from large-magnitude distant earthquakes can cause serious damage to high-rise buildings, even to those located in intraplate urban areas. Real-time monitoring and postearthquake performance assessment of high-rise buildings are therefore essential. Using an integrated optimal sensor placement and response reconstruction scheme, this paper proposes a determinstic real-time warning system and a probabilistic postearthquake performance assessment method for high-rise buildings during and after long-period earthquakes, respectively. Both the warning system and the assessment method make good use of the accurate and complete estimation of all the key structural responses reconstructed from the incomplete measurement data from limited sensors installed in the building. The warning system monitors the building structural behavior in real-time and issues various levels of warning whenever it detects structural responses exceeding the preset safety thresholds. The assessment method evaluates the structural component integrity after an earthquake in a probabilistic manner, incorporating the extreme value distribution of the reconstructed structural responses with the structural component fragility functions to determine the damage probabilities of the structural components. The proposed warning system and assessment method were applied to a superhigh-rise building as a case study. The results from the case study showed that the proposed warning system and assessment method are feasible and effective and have good potential for real application in high-rise buildings.