Methodology for estimating realistic responses of buildings and components under earthquake motion and its application

Failure probabilities of buildings and components under earthquake motion are estimated as conditional probabilities that their realistic responses exceed their capacities. Two methods for estimating their failure probabilities have already been developed. One is a detailed method developed in the Seismic Safety margins Research Program of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in U.S.A., which is called 'SSMRP method'. The other is a simplified method proposed by Kennedy et al., which is called 'Zion method'. The Zion method is sometimes called 'response factor method'. The authors adopted the response factor method. In order to enhance the estimation accuracy of failure probabilities of buildings and components, however, a new methodology for improving the response factor method was proposed. Based on the improved method, response factors of buildings and components designed to seismic design standard in Japan were estimated, and their realistic responses were also calculated. By using their realistic responses and capacities, the failure probabilities of a reactor building and relays were estimated. In order to identify the difference between new method, SSMRP method and original response factor method, the failure probabilities were compared estimated by these three methods. A similar method of SSMRP was used instead of the original SSMRP for saving time and labor. The viewpoints for selecting the methods to estimate failure probabilities of buildings and components were also proposed. (author). 55 refs