Evaluation of the damage degree in buildings structures subjected to earthquakes

This paper represents an overview of the investigation pursued by the authors in the field of damage evaluation of concrete structures. A procedure to evaluate the damage of reinforced concrete structures subjected to static and dynamic actions has been developed, which is based on a local damage constitutive model using Kachanov’s theory. The constitutive model is used within a finite element frame, a non-linear Newmark-type tangent incremental time integration scheme is employed and finally, an overall global damage index, based on potential energy criteria, is developed and justified