A response spectrum-based indicator for structural damage prediction

Abstract Improving predictive relationships between strong ground motion and seismically induced damage in buildings is an important topic for seismic risk assessment. Spectral acceleration at a structure’s fundamental period S a ( T 1 ) has often been used as the indicator of the potential damage a given ground motion may induce on structural systems. However, such a scalar indicator (Damage Potential Indicator, DPI) captures only limited information about the ground motion time history and response spectrum shape. In a severely damaged state, the effective period of a structure will change, which makes the structure respond to other parts of the response spectrum. In this study, a new response spectrum-based DPI that contains an intensity component and a spectral shape component is proposed. The critical period range of the response spectrum that should be considered in spectral shape evaluation is determined using a circle rule for bilinear single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems. The effectiveness of the newly proposed DPI is validated by comparing damage potential similarity using a database of ground motion records.