Assessment of Structural Robustness under Different Events according to Vulnerability

Abstract

Structural robustness is investigated in this study according to its opposite property, i.e., structural vulnerability, which is calculated as the assembly of component vulnerability measured by the vulnerability coefficient. Different types of vulnerability coefficients are suitable for both truss and RC frame structures. An importance coefficient based on the bearing capacity of the remaining structure is proposed to reveal the internal topology and failure scenarios, and is viewed as the weight coefficient of the corresponding vulnerability coefficient. The occurrence probability density function is introduced to describe the uncertainty of abnormal events and assess structural robustness under different events. Numerical examples of several idealized trusses and a RC frame are performed to demonstrate the use of the proposed robustness index. Analysis results show that the robustness index provided good explanation for robustness quantification for both truss and RC frame structures under different events. Moreover, two methods, i.e., increasing the local resistance and redundancy of the structure, to upgrade structural robustness also testify to the effectiveness and accuracy of the robustness index.