Capacity-curve-based damage evaluation approach for reinforced concrete buildings using seismic response data

Efficient and quantitative damage inspection is essential for safety assessment of existing structures after an earthquake event. This paper proposes an approach for assessing the damage condition of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings using seismic response data in terms of the relationship between the mass-normalized force and deformation of an equivalent single-degree-of-freedom system, which enables a quick diagnosis of the overall structural condition in a quantitative manner. An experimental investigation is presented, and comparison between the proposed and code-specified visual-inspection methods is made based on the result of a full scale six-story RC wall-frame building shaking table test. We show that the damage-evaluation results using the proposed method agree fairly well with those of the visual inspection during the tests.