Seismic demand on light-acceleration-sensitive nonstructural components in European reinforced concrete buildings

The seismic performance of nonstructural com ponents is nowadays recognized as one of the most critical issues related to the performance -based earthquake engineering. In order to obtain an adequate seismic design of nonstructural components, a cons istent estimation of the seismic demand is essential. Recent studies have shown that current international building codes provide unreliable approaches to the evaluation of acceleration floor spectra. This paper examines the seismic demand on light acceler ation -sensitive nonstructural components caused by frequent earthquake through an accurate parametric study . In this work, a number of reinforced concrete frame structures are designed according to Eurocode 8 and subjected to a set of frequent earthquakes, i.e. 63% probability of exceeda nce in 50 years. In order to assess the reliability of Eurocode 8 formulations, dynamic nonlinear analysis have been performed on a set of reference structures. It is found that Eurocode 8 significantly underestimates the acceleration demand for a wide range of periods. An alternative method to estimate f loor acceleration demands in mul ti-story buildings is presented through the proposal of a new formulation that is able to better predict the actual acceleration demand.