Multilevel Damage Indicator–Enabled Seismic Damage Evolution Analysis and Fragility Assessment of Structures

Abstract

The current performance-based seismic evaluation methodologies can be broadly classified into three categories based on the adopted indicators: displacement-based seismic evaluation, energy-based seismic evaluation, and damage-based seismic evaluation. However, these approaches predominantly concentrate on analyzing either the entire structure or individual components, whereas a clear computational methodology for evaluating the performance from the material level to structural level is still lacking. With the ongoing advancements in finite-element analysis and computer science technologies, it has become feasible to conduct more sophisticated and multilevel seismic performance evaluations of structures. Acknowledging that damage at the material level underlies the degradation of performance in both components and structures as a whole, this paper further establishes a multilevel hierarchical damage indicator framework based on quantitative material damage, spanning from the material level to the structural level. Additionally, a seismic performance evaluation is carried out on a specific frame structure utilizing incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) and the fragility analysis method, for the purpose of verifying the effectiveness of the multilevel damage indicators in structural assessment. In general, the damage indicator presented in this paper allows for the assessment of damage at multiple levels, offering a more comprehensive reflection of damage and providing broader application prospects in the future.