Effect of earthquake ground motion duration on the seismic response of a low-rise RC building

This paper investigates the effect of earthquake ground motion duration on the seismic response of a low-rise reinforced concrete shear wall building. Two sets of spectrally equivalent ground motion sets were determined to isolate the effect of duration from other earthquake record characteristics. A numerical model that accounts for P-delta effects and degradation of strength and stiffness of the structural elements was used. Detailed nonlinear dynamic analysis for both the design and collapse levels of shaking was performed, considering the spectral acceleration at the fundamental period of vibration with intensity measure and material strains as engineering demand parameters. The results showed that at the design level of shaking, slightly larger interstory drifts were obtained under the short-duration events. However, the maximum values for interstory drifts were small, and minor damage is expected in the structure. When both seismic record sets were incrementally scaled until collapse, a slight increase in the material strains was found under the short-duration seismic events. Overall, it is indicated that ground motion duration does not influence the seismic response of low-rise buildings with low deformation capacity.