Residual capacity of earthquake damaged buildings

Seismic behavior of damaged buildings may be expressed as a function of their REsidual Capacity (REC), that is a measure of seismic capacity reduced due to damage; the diminishing of REC after an earthquake is representative of Performance Loss PL. This paper deals with the problem of assessing building’s REC for existing under-designed Reinforced Concrete (R.C.) buildings that are typically found in European Mediterranean regions. REC is evaluated based on pushover curves obtained for the structure in different damage state configurations, where building’s behavior is simulated with a suitable modification of plastic hinges for damaged elements. Moreover, a simplified approach for REC assessment, that may be useful for a preliminary evaluation of possible damage dependent PL, is proposed.