Seismic vulnerability assessment of irregular reinforced concrete buildings in Australia

Reinforced concrete buildings make up most of the Australia’s medium to high rise building stocks. The buildings are commonly supported by reinforced concrete cores/walls and reinforced concrete frames and often feature vertical irregularities which can be caused by discontinuities of the load carrying elements. The buildings are generally considered to be vulnerable in an earthquake due to little or no consideration of ductile detailing in the design of their structural elements. The vulnerability of the buildings can also be exacerbated by the irregularities in the building. The paper introduces a rapid seismic assessment method for reinforced concrete buildings in regions of low to moderate seismicity. The method can provide significant time savings especially when a large number of buildings are to be assessed. The method has been used to assess the seismic vulnerability of irregular reinforced concrete buildings in Australia.