Nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis and fragility curves of tall steel buildings with buckling restrained braces and tuned mass dampers

The importance of seismicity in developing countries and the strengthening of buildings is a topic of major importance. Therefore, the study of several solutions with the development of new technologies is of great importance to investigate the damage on retrofitted structures by using probabilistic methods. The Federal Emergency Management Agency considers three types of performance levels by considering different scenarios, intensity and duration. The selection and scaling of ground motions mainly depends on the aim of the study. Intensity-based assessments are the most common and compute the response of buildings for a specified seismic intensity. Assessments based on scenarios estimate the response of buildings to different earthquake scenarios. A risk-based assessment is considered as one of the most effective. This research represents a practical method for developing countries where exists many active faults, tall buildings and lack of good implementable approaches. Therefore, to achieve the main goal, two high-rise steel buildings have been modeled and assessed. The contribution of buckling-restrained braces in the elastic design of both buildings is firstly verified. In the nonlinear static range, both buildings presented repairable damage at the central top part and some life safety hinges at the bottom. The nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis was applied by 15 representative/scaled accelerograms to obtain levels of performance and fragility curves. The results shown that by using probabilistic methods, it is possible to estimate the probability of collapse of retrofitted buildings by buckling-restrained braces and tuned mass dampers, which are practical retrofitting options to protect existing structures against earthquakes.