Reliability and reliability-based sensitivity analyses of steel moment-resisting frame structure subjected to extreme actions

Abstract

The ground external columns of buildings are vulnerable to the extreme actions such as a vehicle collision. This event is a common scenario of buildings' damages. In this study, a nonlinear model of 2-story steel moment-resisting frame (SMRF) is made in OpenSees software. This paper aims investigating the reliability analysis of aforementioned structure under heavy vehicle impact loadings by Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) in MATLAB software. To reduce computational costs, meta-model techniques such as Kriging, Polynomial Response Surface Methodology (PRSM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) are applied and their efficiency is assessed. At first, the random variables are defined. Then, the sensitivity analyses are performed using MCS and Sobol's methods. Finally, the failure probabilities and reliability indices of studied frame are presented under impact loadings with various collision velocities at different performance levels and thus, the behavior of selected SMRF is compared by using fragility curves. The results showed that the random variables such as mass and velocity of vehicle and yield strength of used materials were the most effective parameters in the failure probability computation. Among the meta-models, Kriging can estimate the failure probability with the least error, sample number with minimum computer processing time, in comparison with MCS.

Keywords

• reliability
• meta-model
• sensitivity
• impact loading
• steel moment-resisting frame