Degrading Seismic Performance of Tall Shear Wall Buildings under Earthquake Sequences

Abstract

It is widely recognized that high-seismic regions across the world are frequently affected by repeated earthquakes. The destructive effects of repeated earthquakes have been investigated by many researchers using performance parameters such as residual displacement, inter-story drift, and dissipated energy. In this study, a high-rise reinforced concrete shear wall building with 40 floors above grade, which represents a typical real tall building, is selected as the example building for numerical analyses. Nonlinear response history analyses are performed under different combinations of earthquakes with various spectral acceleration intensities. The analysis results for the tall building under the earthquake sequences indicate that concrete strain governs the seismic performance level of the building, while steel strain consistently meets the Immediate Occupancy limit. The study concludes that the Immediate Occupancy threshold, defined by the concrete strain at peak stress, is a critical limit for preventing significant damage under repeated seismic demands.