Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/soildyn

Eect of dierent aspects of multiple earthquakes on the nonlinear behavior MARK

of RC structures

F. Hosseinpour , A.E. Abdelnaby
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: Observations from eld investigations have shown that a structure may be subjected to more than one
Degrading models earthquake in a relatively short period of time. Since after every single earthquake, a structure faces a stiness
Multiple earthquakes and strength degradation, it may not be able to withstand subsequent shaking especially when seismic retrot is
Vertical earthquake component not an option due to the short time intervals between the successive earthquakes. Therefore, it is necessary to
Earthquake direction
consider eects of repeated shaking on the behavior of structures prone to multiple earthquakes. Although
Aftershock polarity
Damage
many studies have been performed so far, there are some signicant decits which need more attention. Some
Irregularity of the important limitations in most of the recent studies include: (1) the use of ground motion data from
uncorrelated events occurring at dierent locations and times; (2) utilization of simple models that do not
contain appropriate damage features; and (3) no proper consideration to the eects of earthquake direction,
aftershock polarity, structure irregularity, and the vertical component of the earthquake. The objective of this
study is to overcome the aforementioned limitations through using a robust nite element model that simulates
the degrading behavior of reinforced concrete structures subjected to as-recorded seismic sequences. For this
purpose, the nonlinear response of two eight-story reinforced concrete buildings (both regular and irregular in
height) is evaluated. The buildings are subjected to a suite of ground motion records obtained from the recent
20102011 Christchurch earthquake sequence. Dynamic response history analyses are conducted to investigate
the eects of: 1) damage from previous ground motions; 2) earthquake direction; 3) aftershock polarity; and 4)
the vertical component of the earthquake. The results presented in this study indicate that earthquake direction
(in the irregular building), structure irregularity, and the vertical earthquake component can have a
considerable eect on the response of structures subjected to multiple earthquakes. Findings also show that
aftershock polarity can signicantly change the response of the irregular structure.

1. Introduction Christchurch (New Zealand, 20102011), Chile (2010), Nepal

Multiple earthquakes occur at many regions around the world
where complex fault systems exist. These fault systems usually do not
relieve all accumulated strains at once when the rst rupture takes
place. Therefore high stresses form at dierent locations causing
sequential ruptures until the fault system is completely stabilized.
The sequential ruptures along the fault segment(s) lead to multiple
earthquakes which are often hard to distinguish them as fore-, main-
and after-shocks, or a sequence of earthquakes from proximate fault
segments [1]. Since usually the time spans between seismic sequences
are short and there is not enough time to retrot the structure against
subsequent ground motions, the structures suer from stiness and
strength degrading as a result of accumulated damage.
Damage of structures due to successive shaking has been reported
in recent earthquake sequences including Tohoku (Japan, 2011),
(2015), and the most recent one, Kumamoto (Japan, 2016). The latter
sequences occurred at the time of preparation of the present paper and
are still ongoing. Two foreshocks of magnitude 6.2 and 6 followed by a
magnitude 7 main shock between 14 and 15 April 2016 (UTC) caused
severe damage and injuries. Furthermore many casualties have been
reported for Kumamoto earthquakes so far. Fig. 1 shows the earth-
quakes with magnitudes more than 4 in Kyushu (the region that
Kumamoto city is located) between 14 and 17 April 2016 (UTC) based
on the information in IRIS [2]. As it can be seen in Fig. 1, there are 51
earthquakes (with Mw >4) in about 84 h. It should be noted that some
earthquake magnitudes were based on body-wave magnitudes (mb)
and the others were based on moment magnitude (Mw). Therefore,
Scordilis relationship [3] was employed to convert mb to Mw as
follows:

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: fhssnpur@memphis.edu (F. Hosseinpour).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2016.11.006
Received 1 May 2016; Received in revised form 26 August 2016; Accepted 1 November 2016
Available online 24 November 2016
0267-7261/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

Fig. 1. Fore-, main- and aftershocks of Kumamoto-Japan earthquake in Kyushu region between 14 and 17 April 2016 (UTC).

Fig. 2. Map of central Canterbury showing the Greendale fault surface trace (black line), the epicenter of the dareld earthquake (blue star), and the vertical PGAs at selected strong-
motion stations. (For interpretation of the references to color in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) [42].

Mw=0. 85( 0. 04)mb +1. 03((0. 23), 3. 5mb6. 2
Almost none of the existing design codes include a reliable method
to consider the eect of seismic sequences (multiple earthquakes) on
the behavior of structures. The most widely used approach for seismic
design of structures is based on a single (strongest) earthquake. In
recent years, researchers investigated the eect of seismic sequences on
dierent aspects of inelastic behavior of structures [1,435].
(1) Aschheim and Black [4] employed degrading systems for the rst
time to study the eect of damage from previous earthquake on the
response of SDOF structures. They demonstrated that the eect of
previous earthquake on the peak displacement of the SDOF system is
not signicant and displacement responses of the damaged and
undamaged SDOF structures are similar after the structure experiences
the peak displacement. Amadio et al. [5] investigated nonlinear
behavior of SDOF systems under multiple earthquakes. They employed

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F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby
Fig. 3. Main shock and aftershocks of Christchurch earthquake 2010 (source: GNS Science [43]).
dierent hysteretic models and showed that multiple earthquakes can
cause signicant damage accumulation. They also indicated that the
most vulnerability is related to the elastic-perfect plastic systems and
hence they can be considered as the controlling system. In this study, a
moment resisting steel frame was also analyzed under seismic
sequences. Findings showed a more reduction in behavior factor for
the MDOF structure than the equivalent SDOF system is observed.
Hatzigeorgiou and Liolios [6] studied nonlinear behavior of RC frames
under repeated strong ground motions. They employed 45 seismic
sequences to investigate the inelastic behavior of eight RC frames
including both regular and vertically irregular structures. The results of
this study showed that the response and design of RC frames are
signicantly aected by seismic sequences. They also proposed an
empirical expression to estimate the ductility demands under multiple
earthquakes using a simple combination of ductility demands under
single earthquakes. Ruiz-Garcia and Negrete-Manriquez [7] evaluated
the drift demands in the steel frames with dierent number of stories
under as-recorded seismic sequences (both far-eld and near eld).
The results showed that the frequency contents of the main shock and
aftershock are signicantly dierent. They indicated that as-recorded
aftershocks do not have an important eect on the increase of peak and
residual drift demands and that articial sequences can cause an
overestimation in median peak and residual drift demands.
Abdelnaby [1] and Abdelnaby and Elnashai [8,9] studied the eects
of multiple earthquakes on degrading RC structures. They used ber
based models to investigate the nonlinear behavior of concrete
structures under both articial and as-recorded seismic sequences. In
this study dierent degrading features for steel and concrete were
considered. Based on the results of this study, degrading models
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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725
completely changed the response of the structures. Findings also
demonstrated that the nonlinear behavior of RC structures is signi-
cantly aected by multiple earthquakes. Raghunandan et al. [10] also
studied aftershock collapse vulnerability of RC frame structures. They
indicated that collapse capacity of the structure under aftershock will
be reduced signicantly if the damage level resulting from the main
shock is signicant. They also employed dierent physical damage
measures to see their eectiveness in predicting the aftershock collapse
capacity of the damaged buildings. They divided the damage indicators
into two groups: (1) Observable; and (2) Non-observable. Based on a
considered ranking, it was concluded that the drift of the damaged
building is the best damage measure. Faisal et al. [11] investigated the
eect of multiple earthquakes on ductility demands of three-dimen-
sional inelastic concrete frames with dierent number of stories (3, 6,
12, and 18 stories) and observed a signicant increase in the ductility
demands when considering multiple earthquakes. They also proposed
empirical relationships to predict maximum story ductility demands of
the considered frames under seismic sequences. Zhang et al. [12] also
evaluated the damage of concrete gravity dams under as-recorded
multiple earthquakes and concluded that accumulated damage and
design of concrete gravity dams are highly aected by as-recorded
seismic sequences. They also proposed that considering the isolated
design earthquake underestimates the dam damage and hence the
traditional codes need to be modied and multiple earthquakes should
be considered in these codes. Hatzivassiliou and Hatzigeorgiou [13]
studied the eects of seismic sequences on three-dimensional rein-
forced concrete buildings. They observed that the seismic demands are
increased by multiple earthquakes. They also investigated the eect of
siting conguration on the ductility demand and indicated that the
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

Table 1
Stations.

Station Latitude Longitude Na

Ashburton District Council (ADCS) 43 54 15S 171 44 51E 2

Arthurs Pass Police Station (APPS) 42 57 02S 171 34 03E 2
Ashley School (ASHS) 43 16 34S 172 35 45E 3
Christchurch Canterbury Aero Club (CACS) 43 29 05S 172 31 48E 9
Christchurch Botanic Gardens (CBGS) 43 31 52S 172 37 11E 10
Christchurch Cathedral College (CCCC) 43 32 23S 172 38 50E 3
Christchurch Hospital (CHHC) 43 32 15S 172 37 38E 12
Christchurch Cashmere High School (CMHS) 43 34 02S 172 37 27E 7
Canterbury Ring Laser (CRLZ) 43 34 35S 172 37 23E 3
Cust School (CSTC) 43 18 50S 172 22 52E 2
Opus Building, Ground Floor (D06C) 43 32 31S 172 36 51E 2
5th Floor Christchurch Police Stn (D08C) 43 32 03S 172 37 57E 2
Basement of Christchurch Police Station (D09C) 43 32 02S 172 37 57E 3
Sign of the Kiwi (D13C) 43 36 30S 172 38 41E 3
Kennedy Bush Reserve (D14C) 43 38 03S 172 37 28E 3
Summit Road (D15C) 43 35 11S 172 43 32E 3
Dareld High School (DFHS) 43 29 29S 172 06 07E 5
Dunsandel School (DSLC) 43 40 09S 172 11 52E 2
Greendale (GDLC) 43 35 16S 172 05 19E 3
Godley Drive (GODS) 43 34 48S 172 46 13E 4
Halswell School (HALS) 43 35 33S 172 34 10E 5
Hillmorton High School (HHSS) 43 33 33S 172 35 34E 2
Hororata School (HORC) 43 32 29S 171 57 35E 2
Hulverstone Drive Pumping Station (HPSC) 43 30 12S 172 42 07E 6
Heathcote Valley Primary School (HVSC) 43 34 52S 172 42 33E 22
Kaiapoi North School (KPOC) 43 22 41S 172 39 49E 8
Lyttleton Port Cashin Quay (LCQC) 43 36 37S 172 43 46E 2
Lincoln Crop and Food Research (LINC) 43 37 29S 172 28 04E 8
Lyttelton Port Company (LPCC) 43 36 34S 172 43 29E 7
Lyttleton Port Oil Wharf (LPOC) 43 36 36S 172 42 53E 5
McQueen's Valley (MQZ) 43 42 28S 172 39 13E 2
New Brighton Library (NBLC) 43 30 31S 172 43 52E 8
Christchurch North New Brighton School 43 29 50S 172 43 04E 3
(NNBS)
Oxford (OXZ) 43 19 39S 172 02 17E 2
Panorama Road (PARS) 43 34 10S 172 45 02E 3
Christchurch Papanui High School (PPHS) 43 29 40S 172 36 24E 5
Pages Road Pumping Station (PRPC) 43 31 39S 172 40 58E 8
Riccarton High School (RHSC) 43 32 16S 172 33 51E 8
Rakaia School (RKAC) 43 45 11S 172 01 23E 2
Rolleston School (ROLC) 43 35 40S 172 22 51E 2
Southbridge School (SBRC) 43 48 37S 172 15 08E 3
Shirley Library (SHLC) 43 30 25S 172 39 48E 5
Selwyn Lake Road (SLRC) 43 40 36S 172 19 03E 3
Styx Mill Transfer Station (SMTC) 43 28 09S 172 36 49E 6
Springeld Fire Station (SPFS) 43 20 23S 171 55 44E 2
Swannanoa School (SWNC) 43 22 16S 172 29 43E 2
Templeton School (TPLC) 43 33 06S 172 28 19E 2
Waikari (WAKC) 42 57 53S 172 42 18E 2

a
Number of records with PGA >=0.05g in both horizontal and vertical directions.

level of increase in ductility demand is strongly aected by the siting
conguration.
Although some studies have been performed so far, there are still
some limitations. Most of the employed models include either system
level based or component level based models. System level based
models are the models considering the structure as single degree of
freedom. Although these models are simple, they have some decits. In
system level based models, the localized behavior, force redistribution
and the eect of higher modes are neglected. Component level based
models or lumped plasticity models have also been extensively used to
show the behavior of the MDOF structures under seismic sequences.
Although these models are not computationally expensive, they do not
account for localized degradation in strength and stiness. In these
models, the length of the plastic hinges is considered as zero. Instead of
beam-column connections, the rest of the structure assumes to behave
elastically. To overcome the limitations of the previous models, some
researchers employed ber based models [1,8,9,3638]. Fiber based
models or distributed plasticity models consider the nonlinearity not
only in the connections, but also along the whole length of the
members. These models divide the cross sections into dierent
materials and bers. For each material, dierent models considering
degrading eects can be employed and then the models are assembled
to show the behavior of the cross section and member. Using ber
based models, the local degradation in concrete and steel reinforce-
ments in a reinforced concrete structure can be easily modeled.
However these models are computationally expensive, especially in
case of 3-D structures, but they are more reliable than lumped
plasticity models.
Most of the present studies have also used repeated or uncorrelated
random earthquakes (articial sequences) to investigate the behavior of
the structures under multiple earthquakes. Since the characteristics of
the main shock and aftershock, such as magnitude, intensity, frequency

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F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

Fig. 4. Horizontal and vertical seismic sequences in RHSC and HVSC stations.

content, and duration are dierent and characteristics of the ground
motions are dierent in dierent site conditions as well, using articial
sequences leads to unreliable results. The eects of aftershock polarity,
earthquake direction, structure irregularity, and the vertical compo-
nent of the earthquake on the response of the structures under multiple
earthquakes are also other limitations that have not been studied
suciently so far.
This study aims to overcome the aforementioned limitations and
evaluate the behavior of the concrete structures under as-recorded
seismic sequences. For this purpose, two eight-story reinforced con-
crete buildings, including one regular and one irregular (in height)
buildings, are modeled using ber based modeling in Zeus-NL soft-
ware, developed at university of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [39]. In
modeling the structures, dierent degrading features like stiness and
strength degradation and pinching eect (changing in stiness from
tension to compression and vice versa) in concrete as well as the local
buckling, yielding, and Bauschinger eect (reduction in yielding stress
due to the changing of the loading direction) in steel reinforcements are
considered. The nonlinear response of the structures under 48 real
seismic sequences from Christchurch-New Zealand earthquakes 2010
2011 are studied and the eect of irregularity, damage from previous
events, aftershock polarity, vertical component of the earthquake, and
earthquake direction on the structural demands will be investigated.
2. Input ground motions
As it was mentioned in previous section, since the characteristics of
the main shock and aftershock are dierent, using repeated sequences
as multiple earthquakes may not be reliable. Furthermore, because of
the dierent site conditions, using random ground motions from
uncorrelated earthquakes and putting them in sequences to investigate
the behavior of the structures cannot be reliable as well. For this

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F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby
Fig. 4. (continued)
purpose, this study employs as-recorded sequences from Christchurch-
New Zeeland 20102011 earthquakes.
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the Canterbury Region of New
Zealand at 4:35 am on 4 September 2010 [40]. The earthquake's
epicenter was located some 25 miles (40 km) west of Christchurch
near the town of Dareld, and the focus was located about 6 miles
(10 km) beneath the surface. It was caused by right-lateral movement
along a previously unknown regional strike-slip fault in the western
section of the Canterbury Plains. The fault appeared about 5056 miles
(8090 km) southeast of the boundary between the Australian and
Pacic tectonic plates [41]. This earthquake caused a high vertical
acceleration in many stations as shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 also shows the
main shock's epicenter and fault surface trace. The earthquake was
followed by many large magnitude aftershocks (see Fig. 3). The
recorded PGAs for aftershocks in some stations were much higher
than that of the main shock.
Based on the proximity to the fault region (source to site distance)
and the peak ground accelerations (more than 0.05g), 48 stations with
dierent number of ground motions in sequences were selected. The
records were downloaded from GeoNet processed strong-motion data
[44]. Table 1 shows the stations and the number of ground motions in
sequences with PGA more than 0.05g in both horizontal and vertical
directions. For each station, the records were put in sequences (see
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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725
Fig. 4). The response spectra for individual ground motions and
sequences were also drawn (see Fig. 5). To check the acceleration
consistency of the records with the region of the designed buildings and
the soil type, horizontal response spectra for soil type B as well as
vertical response spectra based on EC8 [45] were obtained (see Fig. 5).
As it can be seen in Fig. 5, the general shapes and trends of the
response spectra are similar for the employed seismic sequences and
EC8 [45].
3. Model development
Two planar concrete structures are employed to represent both
regular and irregular (in height) RC buildings for this study. These
buildings were designed by Hatzigeorgiou and Liolios [6] and where
they modeled the buildings using the lumped plasticity modeling
approach (see Fig. 6). They consist of typical beamcolumn RC frame
buildings without shear walls, located in a high-seismicity region of
Europe considering both gravity and seismic loads [6].
The dead loads (excluding self-weight) and live loads are equal to
20 and 10 kN/m, respectively, and are directly applied on the beams.
All oors are assumed to be rigid in plan to account for the diaphragm
action of concrete slabs. Material properties are assumed to be 20 MPa
for the concrete compressive strength (concrete grade C20) and
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby
Fig. 5. Horizontal and vertical response spectra in RHSC and HVSC stations.
500 MPa for the yield strength of both longitudinal and transverse
reinforcements (steel grade S500s) [6].
In order to accurately capture the degrading behavior of the RC
buildings on the concrete and steel material level, a distributed
plasticity model is developed using ber-based nite element analysis
tool, Zeus-NL [39].
For this purpose the cross section of the elements are divided into
dierent segments based on the material types. Models and relation-
ships considering degrading in steel and concrete are employed and
assembled to demonstrate the behavior of the cross section and
member.
To consider degradation in concrete, the plastic-damage model
proposed by Lee and Fenves [46] is employed. The concept of fracture-
energy-based multiple-hardening is used to represent tensile and
compressive damage independently. A thermodynamically consistent
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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725
scalar model is used to simulate the stiness degradation and recovery.
Stiness recovery scheme is introduced to simulate crack opening and
closure. In addition, the evolution of yield surface is controlled by the
strength function of eective strength that accounts for strength
deterioration due to existence of cracks parallel to the loading direction
[8]. To simulate the behavior of steel reinforcements, modied
Menegotto-Pinto steel model [47,48] is used to consider the
Bauschinger eect, inelastic buckling of reinforcements after crushing
of concrete cover, and reinforcement fracture. Fig. 7 shows cyclic
stress-strain behavior of steel reinforcements and concrete. Table 2
also shows natural periods of the rst three modes.
More details on modeling can be found in Abdelnaby [1] and
Abdelnaby and Elnashai [8,9].
For dynamic analyses, Newmark integration algorithm [49] is
employed. Newmark integration is a well-known implicit method that
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

Fig. 5. (continued)

nt nr
has been used in many structural dynamic problems and investigations di i
on seismic behavior of the structures so far. In this method, two max [ , ]tolerance convergence
dref ref
parameters, and , are employed to get structural responses in each i =1 i =1 (4)
step based on initial conditions as follows:
where di , i , dref , ref ,nt , and nr are iterative displacement i, iterative
ui +1 = ui + (t)[(1 )ui + (ui +1)] (2) rotation i, reference displacement, reference rotation, number of
translational freedoms, and number of rotational freedoms respec-
1
ui +1 = ui + (t)ui + (t)2 [( )ui +ui +1] tively.
2 (3)
Dierent time-steps from 0.001 to 0.02 s are also chosen and both
where ui , ui+1, ui ,ui+1,ui , and ui+1 are displacements, velocities and Newton-Raphson method (number of initial reformations=number of
accelerations in steps i and i+1 respectively and t shows time-steps. In iterations) and modied Newton-Raphson method (number of initial
this study, optimal values of 0.25 and 0.5 are considered for and reformations=0) are employed for iterative strategy. Further detail on
respectively. the employed algorithm, convergence criteria, time stepping, and
The convergence criterion is based on the maximum iterative iterative strategy can be found in [50].
increment of displacements (see Eq. (4))

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F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

Fig. 6. Concrete buildings designed and modeled by Hatzigeorgiou and Liolios [6].

Fig. 7. (a) Cyclic stressstrain behavior of steel under tension and compression [48] (b) uniaxial cyclic behavior of concrete model [46].

4. Seismic behavior of damaged and undamaged structures sidered and the eect of the damage on the story drifts and number of
plastic hinges for both regular and irregular buildings was evaluated.
In order to examine the eect of the damage from previous events, For this purpose, the damaged and undamaged buildings were
multiple earthquakes with dierent number of sequences were con- subjected to aftershocks. The damaged buildings had already experi-

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F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

Table 2 Fig. 10 indicates that the total drifts for both damaged and undamaged
Natural periods of regular and irregular buildings. regular building are almost the same and for irregular building there is
a slight dierence between the demands. As the PGA of the main shock
Models T1 (s) T2 (s) T3 (s)
increased, the dierence between the responses also increased (see
Regular Irregular Regular Irregular Regular Irregular Fig. 11). To see the eect of the vertical irregularity on the structural
responses, the average increases of the total residual drifts in both
Hatzigeorgiou 1.233 0.9673 0.4718 0.4469 0.2651 0.2746
regular and irregular structures were calculated for similar stations as
and liolios[6]
Present study 1.2282 0.9754 0.4593 0.4417 0.2604 0.2747 follows:

Fig. 8. Total residual drifts in damaged and undamaged buildings (a) regular building (b) irregular building.

enced a level of degradation from the main shock while the undamaged
Averageincreasesoftotalresidualdrifts
buildings had not experienced any previous events. The ndings
generally showed an increase in structural demands (see Figs. 8 and Residual drift (damaged )-Residual drift (undamaged )
=
9). However in some cases that the main shock PGA was not high Residual drift (undamaged ) (5)
(almost less than 0.15 g), there was not a signicant dierence between
the demands of the damaged and undamaged structures (see Fig. 10). Considering damage from the previous event, the average increase

715
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby
Fig. 9. Number of plastic hinges in damaged and undamaged buildings (a) regular building (b) irregular building.
of total residual drifts under subsequent events for the irregular
structure was almost twice the regular structure (78.3 and 40.1 for
the irregular and regular structures respectively). Fig. 12 indicates the
plastic hinge locations in the damaged and undamaged regular and
irregular buildings. As it can be seen, considering the damage from the
main shock causes an increase in number of plastic hinges and this
increase is more for the irregular building. Fig. 12 shows the location of
plastic hinges developed in the damaged and undamaged regular and
irregular buildings due to main shock and aftershocks. As it can be
seen, most of the plastic hinges formed in the irregular building are in
columns while for the regular building, they are mostly formed in the
beams. This indicates a better performance for the regular building. In
addition, a soft-story behavior in the irregular building occurred for the
undamaged case causing the development of plastic hinges at the rst-
story columns only. In contrary, the regular building developed multi-
ple plastic hinges along the building stories and hence providing more
energy dissipation and force redistribution in response to aftershock
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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725
excitations.
The moment-curvature diagram for some plastic hinges in beams
and columns of both regular and irregular buildings are also provided
in Fig. 13.
The higher demands in the irregular structure indicate that this
structure is more sensitive to the damage from the previous event. This
can be as a result of force distribution under seismic sequences which is
more symmetric for the regular building.
5. Eect of earthquake direction
To see the performance of the irregular structure in dierent
directions, dierent sequences were employed and applied in both
east-west and west-east directions. Because of the symmetry, the
regular structure was not evaluated for the eect of earthquake
direction. Results indicated that in most cases changing the earthquake
direction signicantly aects the residual drifts. In some stations the
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby
Fig. 10. Total drift demands PGA: main shock (MSH)=0.1 g, aftershock 1 (ASH1)=0.1 g, aftershock 2 (ASH2)=0.07 g (a) regular building (b) irregular building.
dierences between the total residual drifts are more than 10 cm for
two directions (see Fig. 14). Results of this study also indicated that
considering just a main shock to evaluate the structural response in
dierent directions may cause an underestimation in the dierence
between structural demands in dierent directions. As it can be seen in
Fig. 15, for the rst 160 s (main shock), the total drift demands in two
directions are not signicantly dierent but the dierence increases
under subsequent events. Changing in total drift demands with earth-
quake direction shows dierent performances in dierent directions.
This is due to the distinctive variations and degradations of the
structural properties such as stiness, strength, frequency and damp-
ing in each direction. Fig. 16 shows that the number of plastic hinges is
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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725
also aected by earthquake direction in most cases. Therefore it is
necessary to include the eect of earthquake direction when consider-
ing the nonlinear behavior of irregular buildings under seismic
sequences.
6. Eect of aftershock polarity
The other important part of this study includes investigating the
structural behavior based on the aftershock direction (aftershock
polarity). Efraimiadou et al. [14] investigated the eect of aftershock
polarity analytically and studied structural pounding between adjacent
buildings under strong earthquakes. They proposed that the inelastic
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby
Fig. 11. Total drift demands (a) regular building- PGA: MSH=0.47 g, ASH=0.16 g (b) irregular building PGA: MSH=0.4 g, ASH=0.07 g.
seismic behavior of the structures is strongly aected by aftershock
polarity and the sign of the ground motions should be considered in
generating articial sequences. Raghunandan et al. [10] also men-
tioned that when the residual drift resulting from a main shock is high,
the direction of the aftershock with respect to the main shock is
signicant and used randomized main shock polarity to study after-
shock collapse vulnerability of RC frame structures. Ruiz-Garca and
Aguilar [15] employed lumped plasticity modeling approach and
investigated the eect of aftershock polarity on the structural responses
of a four-story steel frame. They concluded that the aftershock collapse
capacity and aftershock capacity against demolition are signicantly
aected by aftershock polarity.
To investigate the eect of aftershock polarity in this study,
dierent sequences were employed to see the variations of the total
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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725
drift demands with changing the aftershock direction. The results were
compared for the cases when the main shock and aftershocks were in
the same direction and when they were in dierent directions. Findings
indicated that aftershock direction has a slight eect on the response of
the regular building and drift demands are not signicantly aected by
aftershock polarity (see Figs. 17(a) and 18(a)). Unlike the regular
building, total residual drift demands in the irregular building were
highly aected by aftershock direction for many sequences and
increased when the main shock and aftershocks were in the same
direction (see Fig. 17(b)). The dierence between the responses was
more for the sequences including aftershocks with high PGAs. As it can
be seen in Fig. 18(b) for the rst 500 s, there is no signicant dierence
between the total drift demands but after that when an aftershock with
a high PGA (0.52 g) is applied to the structure, the responses
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

Fig. 12. Plastic hinge locations PGA: MSH=0.429 g, ASH1=0.094 g, ASH2=0.157 g, ASH3=0.112 g, ASH4=0.125 g, ASH5=0.059 g, ASH6=0.122 g, ASH7=0.067 g (a) regular
building (b) irregular building.

Fig. 13. Momentcurvature behavior of plastic hinges in one end of the beams and columns.

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F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

Fig. 14. Dierence between total residual drifts in two direction.

Fig. 15. Total drift demands for dierent directions.

signicantly change. The higher variations of total drifts and total
residual drifts in the irregular building can be due to the high
sensitivity to the earthquake direction which was shown in the previous
section. Besides that, it was shown in Section 4 that considering the
damage from the previous event, the average increase of total residual
drifts for the irregular structure was almost twice the regular structure.
In other words main shocks had lower impacts on the regular building
and because of the symmetry, changing the direction of subsequent
events causes smaller eects on the structural responses in regular
structure compared to the irregular one.

720
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725

Fig. 16. Dierence between number of plastic hinges in two directions.

Fig. 17. Total residual drifts based on the aftershocks direction with respect to the main shock direction (a) regular building (b) irregular building.

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F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby
Fig. 18. Total drift demandsPGA: MSH=0.29 g, ASH1=0.05 g, ASH2=0.08 g, ASH3=0.52 g (a) regular building (b) irregular building.
7. Eect of vertical component of the earthquake
Most of the previous studies in the eld of earthquake engineering
have neglected the eects of vertical ground motion and are usually
guided by horizontal motion. The main reason for this practice is found
in circumstances that engineering structures are intended primarily for
vertical load transfer and thereby it is implied that they have sucient
resistance to dynamic forces caused by vertical motion [51].
To see the eect of the vertical earthquake component in this study,
multiple earthquakes in both vertical and horizontal directions were
employed and applied to the regular and irregular buildings. The
results showed that considering the vertical component of the earth-
quake does not change the total residual drifts signicantly. Fig. 19
shows the dierence between total residual drifts when considering
both horizontal and vertical earthquake components. As it can be seen
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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725
in Fig. 19, considering both horizontal and vertical earthquake
components causes a very slight change (less 5 mm in most stations)
in total residual drifts.
Since the vertical component causes an increase in axial force in
columns, the number of plastic hinges in columns was also calculated.
As it can be seen in Fig. 20, considering vertical component of the
earthquake causes an increase in the number of the plastic hinges in
columns. Therefore, it can be concluded that the eect of vertical
component of the earthquake on the columns responses shouldn't be
neglected in the design of the reinforced concrete structures under
multiple earthquakes.
It should be noted that because of facing a very high level of
inelasticity and thus structural collapse under some sequences, those
sequences were either not considered or some of their aftershocks were
removed.
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby
Fig. 19. Dierence between total residual drifts when considering earthquake vertical direction (a) regular building (b) irregular building.
8. Conclusion
The present study investigated the nonlinear behavior of concrete
structures under real multiple earthquakes. For this purpose two
regular and irregular (in height) RC buildings were modeled (consider-
ing degrading features of both concrete and steel reinforcements) using
Zeus-NL software. In this study the eect of irregularity, damage from
previous events, earthquake direction, aftershock polarity and vertical
component of the earthquake were considered. Based on the results,
the following conclusions may be drawn:
The eect of the damage from the previous event is more important
in the irregular structure and the average increase of total residual
drifts under subsequent ground motions is almost twice the regular
structure.
Changing the earthquake direction aects the total drift demands
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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 706725
and number of plastic hinges and may cause high total residual
drifts in the irregular structure.
Considering just a main shock to investigate the structural demands
in dierent directions may cause unreliable results.
Aftershock polarity can signicantly change the total drift demands in
the irregular structure especially when sequences contain aftershocks
with high PGAs, but has a slight eect in the regular structure.
The vertical component of the earthquake may have a very slight
eect on total drift demands. However it increases the number of
plastic hinges in columns and it should be considered in design of
the structures under multiple earthquakes.
Because the results of this study are based on certain types of
structures, and since the frequency content and duration of a ground
motion are also other important parameters as well as the PGA, further
research is required to have more reliable ndings.
F. Hosseinpour, A.E. Abdelnaby
Fig. 20. Number of plastic hinges in columns (a) regular building (b) irregular building.
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