09-10-2014, 02:50 PM
The current methodology for the aseismic design of structures is largely based on the concept of ensuring Structural safety during a single earthquake event. This event is usually the most severe event, during which availability of certain minimum ductility is ensured in the structure. This design methodology does not consider the occurrence of several not-so-severe earthquakes and damage accumulation during each of these earthquakes, as may be necessary in the areas of moderate to high seismicity, and thus the actual life of the structure may sometimes be significantly less than the design life. In this study, a new approach has been proposed for the estimation of the actual design life of a single-degree- of-freedom (SDOF) structure in a given seismic environment such that at the end of this life, the structure is expected to attain a specified level of damage. This approach is based on the estimation, of expected number of earthquakes at each source with the help of Gutenberg-Richter relation and timedependent hazard model, and on the estimation of structural damage d