Evaluating Multiobjective Outcomes for Hazard Resilience and Sustainability from Enhanced Building Seismic Design Decisions

Abstract

This study investigates the idea that green buildings should be designed to withstand higher extreme loads (loads associated with earthquakes or other hazards) to reduce the environmental impacts associated with posthazard repairs. This paper assesses the seismic performance and the associated environmental impact of 3 modern reinforced concrete buildings with varying lateral strengths and ductility capacities, considering the 4- and 12-story space and perimeter frames. The results show that the construction of stronger or more ductile (above-code) buildings requires higher upfront embodied carbon due to the larger structural members. The seismic performance was assessed probabilistically using nonlinear dynamic analysis and the seismic losses, both economic (in dollars) and environmental (in equivalent CO2 emissions), quantified for postearthquake damage. The findings suggest that the enhanced lateral strength lowers the postearthquake economic costs and the embodied carbon in comparison with weaker code-compliant or below-code designs. However, enhancing the ductility capacity does not reduce, and can increase, the seismic losses. For highly seismic regions, the enhanced lateral strength can significantly reduce the life-cycle embodied carbon losses enough to offset the higher upfront embodied carbon from constructing the larger structural members.