Rapid assessment of seismic performance for multi-story RC frame buildings using direct prediction method

As urbanization rapidly advances globally, the assessment of seismic resilience provides new perspectives for effectively addressing urban safety risks. The foundation of seismic resilience assessment lies in the calculation of structural seismic performance. Traditional methods for seismic performance calculation are usually based on refined finite element models, resulting in low computational efficiency. In this paper, a direct prediction method for rapid assessment of the seismic performance for multi-story reinforcement concrete (RC) frame buildings is proposed. A dataset containing the seismic performances of 86 multi-story RC frames is established, with six critical parameters identified as directly influencing seismic performance using the Kruskal-Wallis test. It was quantitatively verified that S max , H k , S n , min , H / B 0.5 , N, and H / B are the six most important influencing factors. Based on the established database, two empirical formulas have been proposed to calculate the inter-story drift ratio of the weak story subjected to both frequent earthquakes and rare earthquakes. This paper also includes an application study to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed method. Comparative analysis of RC frame damage assessments using various methods reveals that the calculation results of the direct prediction method are not significantly different from the other three methods, meeting the need for rapid assessment of seismic performance. This method is characterized by its simplicity and high efficiency in predicting seismic performance, and it can provide data support for the assessment of seismic resilience of multi-story RC frames. • Proposing a direct prediction method for RC frames to quickly assess seismic performance. • Determining the main parameters ( S max and H/B ) for the calculation of θ e . • Proposing formulas to calculate the inter-story drift ratio of weak stories under frequent and rare earthquakes. • Quick seismic resilience assessment results show effectiveness in evaluating damage levels in campus RC frames.