Role of Energy Absorption in Reliability of Tall Columns

Abstract

Earthquake resistant design of key structures at major industrial facilities is often performed with an energy‐absorbing or strong‐motion dissipating mechanism in mind. The energy is usually dissipated through the deformation or damage of less critical components in order to prevent or decrease the potential of a more catastrophic failure of a structure. This paper presents a simplified approach for evaluating the effects of energy dissipation through deformations in foundation bolts of tall industrial columns subjected to strong earthquake ground motion. In particular, changes in the failure probability of a column in the more critical mode of skirt buckling are studied as a function of bolt yielding. The post‐yielding nonlinear response motion of the structure is considered in the failure probability evaluation. Although the procedure presented in this paper is applied to tall industrial columns, it can be used for a variety of other types of structures with only minor modifications.