UCLA

Earthquakes in seismically-active regions present a significant human and financial risk to communities. This study focuses on proposing a prediction model that could serve as a means for quantifying the impact of the main characteristics of earthquakes on the seismic risk of reinforced concrete moment frame structures. The seismic hazard due to sequential earthquakes is examined under mainshock-aftershock seismic sequences. A two-step maximum likelihood regression approach was adopted in order to propose a relationship that would link the seismic response of the studied buildings to the key characteristics of an earthquake. The accuracy of the proposed prediction equation was examined by comparing its outcomes with what was expected from physics-based models. Both the magnitude of an earthquake as well as the distance from the building's location to the rupture plane of the building were found to be among the parameters with the most notable impact on the buildings' seismic response.