Vibration-based continuous monitoring for post-earthquake damage diagnosis of precast reinforced concrete buildings

This paper presents a methodology for rapid post-earthquake damage assessment of a precast RC industrial building. It is based on data obtained from a continuous monitoring system made of accelerometers and inclinometers integrated on top and at the bottom of some of the buildings columns. Preliminarily, a Finite Element(FE) model of the structure is built to simulate the response of the structure under a given seismic input characteristic of the site of the construction. Several nonlinear static analyses (NLSA) and nonlinear dynamic analyses (NLDA) are carried out in order to evaluate the seismic capacity of the building and to relate the seismic intensity to the potential level of damage experienced by the structure. Results in terms of top displacements for both NLSA and NLDA corresponding to the first plastic hinge formation are statistically elaborated and used to establish alert intervals related to the specific structure under investigation. Then, in operational conditions, continuous monitoring data are used in conjunction with the pre-evaluated alert intervals in order to perform a real-time post-earthquake diagnosis of the system.