Search USGS⌕ Search

USGS · 70237026

Before and after retrofit behavior and performance of a 55-story tall building inferred from distant earthquake and ambient vibration data

Also available from

Abstract

A sparsely instrumented 55-story building in Osaka, Japan had recorded unprecedented, severe and long-duration long-period resonating responses during the March 11, 2011 M9.0 Tohoku earthquake that occurred at 767 km distance. Thereafter, studies of the records resulted in implementation of a significant retrofit design, comprising dampers and buckling restrained braces (BRBs). The responses of the retrofitted building were also recorded during the April 24, 2016 M7.3 Kumamoto earthquake that occurred at 478 km. The earthquake and on-demand acquired ambient response data are analyzed in this study to assess the impact of this rare, retrofitted and instrumented tall building subjected to long period strong shaking from events originating at far distances. As expected, the fundamental frequency and critical damping ratio of the building increased, albeit small, after the retrofit as compared to before the retrofit. Increase of damping percentage is a positive finding and indicates that even larger percentages may be attained under shaking stronger than the 2016 event. The records indicate that the building still experiences significant resonance, torsion, as well as a beating effect.

Explore related subjects

90° N90° S · 180° W ← longitude → 180° E
Source-reported bounding extent: 34.482788036293435° to 34.80083618518153° latitude; 135.28289794921875° to 135.62828063964844° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Mehmet Celebi, Toshihide Kashima, S. Farid Ghahari, Shin Koyama, Ertuğrul Taciroğlu, Izuru Okawa. 2017-11-01. Before and after retrofit behavior and performance of a 55-story tall building inferred from distant earthquake and ambient vibration data. https://doi.org/10.1193/122216eqs249m

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related USGS reports

Revisions to the 2023 U.S. 50-state National Seismic Hazard Model

We present an update to the 2023 U.S. 50-state National Seismic Hazard Model, based on questions and comments received from a range of users, as well as additional internal and building code reviews since its initial release. For the conterminous United States, the update includes (1) revised weighting of ground motion models in the Intermountain West, (2) revised weighting of seismicity models across the stable crust of the central and eastern United States, (3) corrections to fault rupture input files and hazard codes, and (4) adjustments to stable crust nonlinear site amplification terms at soft soil sites. The model also updates the implementation of moment magnitude 7–8 subduction interface earthquake ruptures for Alaska and includes an alternate, full-catalog rate model for Hawaii. The revised model is available through the U.S. Geological Survey online tools and is accompanied by a data release of high-resolution hazard datasets for eight site conditions (from soft soil to hard rock with a time-averaged shear-wave velocity, V S30 , ranging from 150 to 1500 m/s) in terms of peak horizontal ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, and 5% damped pseudo-spectral accelerations at 21 spectral periods. It has been approved as the basis for updated design provisions and is being considered for inclusion in other hazard and risk assessment products.

Earthquake Spectra↗

An examination of the reasons for, and variability of, the differences between response spectra and pseudo response spectra

For many decades, it has been common practice to overlook the differences between response spectra and pseudo response spectra. This practice stems from analyses indicating that the average difference between response spectra and pseudo response spectra is negligible for a viscous damping ratio of 5%, which is near-universally adopted. As others have shown, the differences depend strongly on the damping ratio, earthquake magnitude, and oscillator period, with larger differences for larger damping, smaller magnitudes, and longer periods. To quantify the full statistical distribution of the ratio of the absolute acceleration response spectrum (SA) to the pseudo absolute acceleration response spectrum (PSA), we fit empirical ratios with the generalized gamma distribution. Data for magnitudes from 4.0 to 5.5 give 95% prediction intervals for the ratio of 1.00–1.02 at 1 s and 1.01–2.24 at 10 s for 5% damping. For 30% damping, these intervals increase to 1.14–2.01 at 1 s and 1.62–11.8 at 10 s, respectively. Further, we demonstrate how the shape of the ground-motion Fourier amplitude spectrum interacts with the natural period of the oscillator to control the differences in the response spectra type. Routinely treating the two measures of acceleration response spectra as interchangeable may lead to unacceptable inconsistencies when the response spectra of individual records are important or when larger damping ratios are used, such as in direct displacement-based design. If one must convert between them, the uncertainty of the conversion should be accounted for during analysis.

Earthquake Spectra↗

Accounting for biases in the analysis of building damage data for the 2023 M7.8 Türkiye/Syria earthquake sequence

In the aftermath of a large earthquake, several practical constraints affect the systematic collection of data for assessing building damage. The available data are therefore typically incomplete, frequently missing key information such as the type of construction, age and geographic location. Moreover, the observations often favour certain locations and damage grades. In the absence of robust methods, using such data directly for characterising the building stock or conducting fragility assessments can introduce systematic bias. Using the 2023 M7.8 Türkiye/Syria earthquake sequence as a case study, we propose a statistical model that enables joint inference over the inventory and fragility of the building stock while explicitly accounting for sources of data error and missing information. The results show higher-than-expected vulnerability amongst several building types, particularly mid- and high-rise reinforced concrete buildings, which performed extremely poorly during the 2023 earthquake sequence. The proposed Bayesian framework provides rigorous uncertainty quantification that can be propagated to future applications.

Earthquake Spectra↗