Modelling of non-structural components of an industrial multi-storey frame for seismic risk assessment

• Published in: Bulletin of earthquake engineering Vol. 21; no. 13; pp. 6065 - 6089
• Main Authors: Quinci, Gianluca, Nardin, Chiara, Paolacci, Fabrizio, Bursi, Oreste S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.10.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Accuracy; Algorithms; Civil Engineering; Components; Configurations; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earthquake accelerograms; Earthquake engineering; Earthquakes; Effectiveness; Environmental Engineering/Biotechnology; Fragility; Geophysics/Geodesy; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Hydrogeology; Industrial plants; Modelling; Original Article; Records; Reinforcement (structures); Risk assessment; Seismic activity; Seismic engineering; Seismic hazard; Seismograms; Shake table tests; Structural Geology; Tanks; Vulnerability; Non-structural component; Fragility curves; FE modeling; Risk assessment; Industrial facilities; Record selection; Computational burden
• ISSN: 1570-761X; 1573-1456
• DOI: 10.1007/s10518-023-01753-4

Seismic risk assessment of industrial facilities is complex due to the presence of different types of equipment. It represents a research issue that requires further investigation. To this end, some analytical approaches have been developed in the framework of performance-based earthquake engineering. Nonetheless, their accuracy in the case of complex critical facilities, such as nuclear and non-nuclear industrial plants, is still under investigation. Thus, the proposed study intends to research in depth, in a risk assessment framework, some critical aspects related to: (1) modelling of industrial facilities and their secondary equipment with different degrees of accuracy, also taking into account their dynamic interaction; (2) selection of seismic records for fragility analysis, due to the narrow distribution of frequency values for non-structural components; (3) effectiveness of performance-based earthquake engineering applied to this particular class of coupled structure-equipment for risk assessment. In this context, the proper selection of seismic records becomes relevant, and SCoRes, an innovative algorithm for accelerograms selection is worthy of investigation. On these premises, two different configurations of a primary industrial structure, i.e. a moment resisting frame and a braced frame, equipped with non-structural components and subjected to shake table test campaigns are selected as case studies. For the two configurations, a vulnerability assessment of two vertical tanks installed on the first floor was carried out. Along these lines, to establish the effectiveness of the proposed method for both the moment resisting frame and braced frame configurations, the mean annual frequency of exceedance of the bottom-wall strain of the above-mentioned tanks, both at the design basis and safe shutdown earthquake has been evaluated.