Sensitivity analysis of seismic performance assessment and consequent impacts on loss analysis

The probabilistic framework for seismic performance evaluation developed by PEER has been widely used in the literature. This framework consists of four steps: hazard analysis, response analysis, damage analysis, and loss analysis. Typically the process involves ground motion selection for numerical analysis, probabilistic model development for engineering demand parameters (EDP), and an EDP hazard calculation approach. This study investigates the impact of three aspects (i.e., the ground motion suite selected, the EDP formulation chosen, and the hazard calculation formulation adopted) on the seismic performance of an office building located in downtown Los Angeles. The result of this study shows that these three aspects have significant impacts on the seismic performance in terms of dynamic responses, demand hazard, and expected annual loss. This study also suggests that more accurate and robust performance evaluation is obtained when: (1) using a ground motion suite that contains a rich intensity measure content, (2) using vector-valued demand models that provides more accurate predictions rather than scalar-valued demand models, and (3) using joint hazard formulations when two seismic intensity measures are involved.