Wave Velocity-Based Damage Criteria: Application and Validation for a 12-Story RC Moment Resisting Building

This study presents a new set of damage criteria associated with the change in estimated velocities of vertically propagating waves in a 12-story reinforced concrete (RC) moment resisting building. Rahmani and Todorovska in 2014 introduced the Time-Velocity algorithm to investigate changes in the estimated propagating wave velocities and detected about 30% reduction in the wave velocities in the building. The damage criteria presented in this study is intended to relate the change in the estimated velocities of vertically propagating waves to a specific extent of structural damage in the building. The results indicate that the building’s damage during the San Fernando earthquake was limited to yielding and cracking in some of the beams while light damage incurred by the columns. As a result, it is shown that the significant reduction of wave velocities and stiffness detected earlier by Rahmani and Todorovska in the building is an over-estimation of true extent of damage to its frames