Seismic collapse safety of reinforced concrete moment resisting frames with/without beam-column joint detailing

FEMA-P695 procedure was applied for seismic collapse safety evaluation of reinforced concrete moment resisting frames with/without beam-column joint detailing common in Pakistan. The deficient frame lacks shear reinforcement in joints and uses concrete of low compressive strength. Shake-table tests were performed on 1:3 reduced scale two-story models, to understand the progressive inelastic response of chosen frames and calibrate the inelastic finite-element based models. The seismic design factors i.e. response modification coefficient, overstrength, ductility, and displacement amplification factors (R, W0, Rμ, Cd) were quantified. Response modification factor R = 7.05 was obtained for the frame with beam-column joint detailing while R = 5.30 was obtained for the deficient frame. The corresponding deflection amplification factor Cd/R was found equal to 0.82 and 1.03, respectively. A suite of design spectrum compatible accelerograms was obtained from PEER strong ground motions for incremental dynamic analysis of numerical models. Collapse fragility functions were developed using a probabilistic nonlinear dynamic reliability-based method. The collapse margin ratio (CMR) was calculated as the ratio of seismic intensity corresponding to the 50th percentile collapse probability to the seismic intensity corresponding to the MCE level ground motions. It was critically compared with the acceptable CMR (i.e. the CMR computed with reference to a seismic intensity corresponding to the 10% collapse probability instead of MCE level ground motions). Frame with shear reinforcement in beam-column joints has achieved CMR 11% higher than the acceptable thus passing the criterion. However, the deficient frame achieved CMR 29% less than the conforming frame. This confirms the efficacy of beam-column joint detailing in reducing collapse risk.