Performance Evaluation of Hillside Buildings under Blast and Blast-Induced Ground Motion

Abstract

The present study evaluates the performance of two hillside building configurations, i.e., split foundation (SF) and step-back (SB), commonly observed in the seismically active Indian Himalayan region, under blast and blast-induced ground motion using an uncoupled approach. Force-controlled nonlinear static analyses are carried out to probabilistically assess the critical blast location for bare- and infill-framed buildings. It is observed that the blast on the downhill side is critical for the hillside buildings having a story ratio of 0.5; whereas, the blast on the uphill side is more damaging for the buildings with a story ratio of 1 and 2. The blast fragility curves, developed herein, show that the presence of infills significantly affects the blast response of RC hillside buildings and the location of the peak response. Further, critical scaled distances corresponding to various damage states for the hillside buildings are found to be more than that for the regular buildings. Furthermore, the response of hillside buildings was investigated under blast-induced ground motions to evaluate the key engineering demand parameters pertinent to structural and non-structural damages.