THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF TALL AND SPECIAL BUILDINGS

Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tal). DOI: 10.1002/tal.1173

Seismic fragility assessment of a tall reinforced concrete chimney

Changdong Zhou*,†, Xulang Zeng, Qinglong Pan and Bin Liu

School of Civil Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China

SUMMARY
In China, a considerable proportion of reinforced concrete (RC) industrial chimneys in operation was
designed and constructed in accordance with less rigorous outdated seismic criteria during the end of
19th and early 20th century. However, few research works have been reported till date on a realistic overall
assessment of the seismic performance of these existing aging RC chimney structures. Therefore, in this
study, fragilities of existing RC chimney were studied. For this purpose, an existing 240 m tall RC chimney
was selected and structurally modeled with a lumped mass beam (stick) model by means of the OpenSees
analysis program. In order to capture the uncertainties in ground motion realizations, a series of 21 ground
motions are selected from the Next Generation Attenuation database as the input motions. To develop the
analytical fragility curves, nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis of the studied RC chimney was then
carried out using the selected input motions, which were normalized to different excitation levels. The
section curvature ductility ratio was considered as the damage index. Based on material strain and sectional
analysis, four limit states (LSs) were defined for five damage state. The seismic responses of the all sections
were utilized to evaluate the likelihood of exceeding the LSs. Then the peak ground acceleration (PGA)-
based seismic fragility curves of the structure were constructed assuming a lognormal distribution. Finally,
under the light of these fragility curves, the damage risks in existing RC chimney were discussed. The
analytical results indicated that for design level earthquake of PGA = 0.1 g (g is the gravitational acceleration)
and the maximum considered earthquake of PGA = 0.22 g, the probabilities of exceeding the light damage state
were around 1.5% and 44%, respectively, while the exceedance probabilities corresponding to moderate,
extensive and complete damage states were approximately zero in both cases. On the other hand, fragility
analysis revealed that the RC chimney structure had considerable ductility capacity and was capable to
withstand a strong earthquake with some structural damages. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 2 January 2014; Revised 16 May 2014; Accepted 15 July 2014

KEY WORDS: tall RC chimney; seismic fragility; safety assessment; incremental dynamic analysis; fragility curve;
damage state

1. INTRODUCTION

China is one of the most seismically active countries, and infrequent moderate to large earthquakes had
occurred in the past. On Monday 12 May 2008, an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 struck northwestern
Sichuan province of China. It is considered to be one of the most damaging earthquakes in China
and caused widespread property loss and claiming over 88 000 lives. Most recently, On 13 April
2010, a 7.1-magnitude quake hit China’s Qinghai, killing at least 400 people and injuring thousands.
In addition to life loss, a large number of the buildings and infrastructures have incurred damaged with
different levels during these earthquakes. This extensive damage and loss of life emphasized the need
to assess seismic performance of existing buildings and infrastructures.
In China, a considerable proportion of reinforced concrete (RC) industrial chimneys in operation
were designed and constructed during the end of 20th and early 21th century to discharge combustion
smoke and create the necessary chimney effect in the industrial procedure. In this respect, RC

*Correspondence to: Zhou Changdong, School of Civil Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, No.3 Shang Yuan
Cun, Hai Dian District, Beijing 100044, China.
†
E-mail: zhouchangdong@163.com

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

 C. ZHOU ET AL.

chimneys structures are one of the important components in industrial processes. It is well known
that tall RC chimneys, whose typical heights are 150–300 m, are specialized tall slender structures
that behave as a vertical cantilever fixed at the base. The cross-sections of chimneys are
oftentimes hollow to meet the need of industrial procedure and generally taper varied in height
for visually esthetic purpose. Because they usually have little structural redundancy, they are
believed to be vulnerable, from a structural point of view, to horizontal loads, particularly for
earthquake loading, and the Marmara (Kilic and Sozen, 2003) and Niigata-ken Chuetsu-oki
(Kim and Shiohara, 2012) earthquakes have distinctly highlighted this vulnerability. Therefore,
it is imperative to identify seismic vulnerability of RC chimneys associated with various states
of damage for future earthquakes.
The objective of this work is to develop analytical fragility curves for an existing 240 m high RC
chimney representing most of the typologies of existing chimneys throughout heavy industrial zone
(e.g. fossil fuel burning power plants and refineries) within China. A procedure for development of
fragility curves based on numerical simulation of seismic response of RC chimneys subjected to
prescribed earthquake excitations is presented. The presented methodology covers the fiber-based
analytical modeling of the reference RC chimney for inelastic simulations. The adopted approaches
for selecting limit state (LS) criteria and 21 input ground motions recorded at different site conditions
for deriving the fragility curves are discussed. The fragilities and damage state probabilities are used to
establish a perspective on seismic performance of the RC chimney structure.

2. METHODOLOGY OF ANALYTICAL FRAGILITY CURVES

Prior to defining the methodology for development of analytical fragility curves, several terminologies
that will be used extensively throughout this study should be illustrated to allow for quick descriptions
of some concepts from performance-based earthquake engineering assessment. The intensity measure
(IM) is a variable that quantifies the ‘strength’ of an earthquake ground motion and is usually
expressed in terms of a scalar-valued IM, such as peak ground acceleration (PGA) or spectral acceler-
ation at a given period (Sa(T)). The structural response parameter is termed an engineering demand
parameter (EDP) and is generally defined as the force (shear, bending moment, axial force and
overturning moment) or the deformation response (peak displacement, maximum inter-story drift ratio,
maximum ductility ratio) in the structure caused by the earthquake loading. It is not difficult to find that
the EDP is a function of the ground motion IM. LSs represent a damage condition and describe the
limiting value for the demand, which is representative of some performance level of interest. It is
apparent that LS is dimensionally consistent with EDP.
Fragility curves express the conditional probability reaching or exceeding a specific LS as a continuous
function of a selected ground motion intensity parameter. Within the framework of performance-based
seismic assessment, the generic representation of this conditional probability statement can be written as

Fragility ¼ P½EDP ≥ LSjIM  (1)

Fragility curves may be either empirical or analytical depending on whether observational or analytical
results are utilized, respectively. The empirical fragility curves are based on the statistics of real damage
data obtained from previously occurred earthquakes and can be accompanied by the opinion of experts
(judgmental). Therefore, the subjectivity involved in these fragility curves is relatively high. In the
absence of sufficient earthquake damage data, the fragility curves can be generated analytically using
numerically simulated seismic responses, such as nonlinear static analysis, nonlinear time history, incre-
mental dynamic analysis (IDA) (Vamvatsikos and Cornell, 2002), and so on. Since analytical fragility
curves can be applicable for any type of structure and have the superiority in terms of their reliability in
comparison with the empirical ones, this study will adopt this analytical approaches for vulnerability
curve generation.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 SEISMIC FRAGILITY ASSESSMENT OF A TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

In the present work, the probability seismic demand model (PSDM) is used to derive the analytical
fragility curves. PSDM is a mathematical expression relating the IM to the EDP. The main purpose of
using such a model is to predict the mean value of EDP for a given value of IM. In this study, the PGA
and maximum sectional curvature ductility ratio are selected as the IM and EDP, respectively. There
are two classes of approaches for the development of PSDM: the cloud analysis approach and the
scaling approach (also named stripe approach and IDA method) (Baker and Cornell, 2006; Zhang
and Huo, 2009). With the cloud analysis approach, the structure is subjected to a set of ground motions
with associated IM values. And in this approach, the ground motion records are either left unmodified,
or all records are scaled by a constant factor if the unmodified records are not strong enough to induce
the structural response level of interest. Based on a series of nonlinear time history analysis using the
unmodified or uniformly scaled ground motion records as an input motion, a set of IM values and their
associated EDP values can be obtained, and then a PSDM can be determined by virtue of regression
analysis using the resulting IM–EDP values. For the scaling approach, each of the selected ground
motion records is scaled to predefined IM levels, and nonlinear time history analysis is performed
for every IM level of each record. By this way, the number of occurrence of a specified damage state
can be obtained for a given IM level. If a total of N records were used to perform nonlinear dynamic
analysis and every record was scaled to m levels, and the number of cases at which the EDP equals or
exceeds a specified LSi at the given IM = imj level were ni, the conditional probability of reaching or
exceeding LSi for IM = imj could be calculated as the exceedence ratios of each damage state for each
IM level over the all selected records:

  ni
P EDP ≥ LSi jIM ¼ imj ¼ (2)
N

where the subscript i (i = 1, 2, 3, 4) represents the ith damage state and the subscript j (j = 1,2,⋯,m) is
the number of IM levels.
By repeating this procedure over the entire IM range, the conditional probability for each LS in
each IM level can be obtained. Based on these conditional probability values, the fragility curves
for the structure under consideration can be constructed under the assumption that analytical fragility
curves can be represented by two-parameter lognormal distribution functions, as shown in the
following equation:

   
 lnðIM Þ  λ

P EDP ≥ LSi IM ¼ Φ (3)
ζ

where Φ represents standard cumulative normal distribution function and λ and ζ are the mean
and standard deviation of natural logarithm of the ground motion intensity (ln(IM)), respectively.
Parameters of lognormal distribution, λ and ζ , can be estimated by using least squares method on
a lognormal probability paper (Karim and Yamazaki, 2001) or the maximum likelihood estima-
tion approach (Shinozuka et al., 2003).
The scaling method is used in this paper, and the basic steps for generating the fragility curves of the
reference chimney are listed and summarized as follows:

(1) Prepare the nonlinear analytical model that represents the selected RC chimney according to the
original engineering drawings and in situ measurement results.
(2) Select EDP and define qualitative description of five damage states and their corresponding LSs
(here also named damage thresholds).
(3) Based on spectrum-compatible criterion, choose the appropriate ground motion records represen-
tative for the seismicity of the region where the structure is located.
(4) Perform IDA and obtain EDPs.
(5) Make a damage assessment by comparing EDPs and damage thresholds (the specified LS) for
every record.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 C. ZHOU ET AL.

(6) Obtain the exceedence ratios of each damage state for each IM level over the all selected records.
(7) Based on least squares method, estimate the parameters of lognormal distribution for each LS with
respect to PGA.
(8) Construct the seismic fragility curves and discuss the damage risks in the case study chimney
structure.

3. STRUCTURE PROPERTIES OF THE REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

The selected RC chimney was designed according to the 1989 seismic design code of China (China
Ministry of Construction, 1989) in 1990 and was constructed in 1992 to serve two generator sets for
a generation company in Jiangsu, China. A picture of the chimney is shown in Fig. 1. The free-
standing RC chimney structure is 240 m high with an inside diameter varying between 22.94 m at
the base and 7.34 m at the top. The structure consists of a concrete outer shell, which has stepwise var-
iable wall thickness from 600 to 200 mm. The cross section of the chimney is circular hollow one
(Fig. 2). The refractory lining consists of fire brick supported on RC corbels that are approximately
15 m apart from each other (Fig. 3). The brick liner starts from 6.4 m, from a solid diaphragm located
at the bottom of the duct opening, and ends at the top of the stack. The unit weight of the brick liner is
about 19 kN/m3. The thickness of the liner is 230 mm for the first 13.6 m, and reduces to 120 mm for
the upper remaining portion. The annular space between the brick lining and the concrete shell con-
tains expanded perlite insulation board varying in thickness from 50 mm at the top to 80 mm at the
base. Two rectangular opening of 5 m width and 10 m height were provided in the shaft for a pair of
flue ducts that circumscribed an arc of about 48° and the bottom of the duct opening was about
6.4 m above the ground (Fig. 4). The chimney is supported on a full circular raft foundation whose di-
ameter and thickness are 37 and 4 m, respectively. According to the seismic design code of China
(China Ministry of Construction, 2010), the site soil classification of the region where the stack is lo-
cated is Class III, which can be classified as the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program
(NEHRP) site class D (VS,30 in the range of 180 and 360 m/s), and the designed seismic precautionary
intensity is Degree 7 associated with design level earthquake of PGA = 0.1 g (g is the gravitational
acceleration) and maximum considered earthquake (MCE) of PGA = 0.22 g.
Details of different geometric parameters of chimney are tabulated in Tab. 1, while the details of ver-
tical reinforcement and circumferential reinforcement of the selected chimney are presented in Tabs. 2
and 3, respectively.

Figure 1. The reinforced concrete chimney for a generation company in Jiangsu, China.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 SEISMIC FRAGILITY ASSESSMENT OF A TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

Figure 2. Cross-section sketch of the selected RC chimney.

Figure 3. The constructional detail of concrete chimney shaft.

4. ANALYTICAL MODELING OF THE REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

At the current study, a two-dimensional (2D) numerical model is constructed using the finite element
code OpenSees (Mazzoni et al., 2006). The chimney structure is modeled using a 2D assemblage of

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 C. ZHOU ET AL.

Figure 4. Size and location of the rectangular openings.

nodes connected by force-based nonlinear fiber beam-column elements representing the average
geometrical sections (Fig. 5). To realize the change of geometrical characteristics, the diameter and
the thickness of the RC shell change each 5 m, which results in the finite element model consisting
of 49 nodes, 48 elements. To account for the effect of the flue openings in the analytical model, the
geometrical characteristics of those elements around the openings are decided according to the equiv-
alent axial area and moments of inertia. The section of each element is subdivided into fibers, and a
parametric study is performed to lead to the decision to model the section with 840 fibers (with a radial
discretization scheme with seven radial divisions and 120 circumferential divisions). The constitutive
behavior of each fiber was defined using a uniaxial material. Considering the results reported by John
L. Wilson (Wilson, 2003) that ignoring the contribution of concrete tensile strength would underesti-
mate the stiffness of chimney, the Concrete02 uniaxial material model is adopted for the behavior of
concrete (Fig. 6). However, it is assumed that both the cover and the core have the behavior of uncon-
fined concrete because the available information about the confinement effect of hollow circular
section is relatively scarce. Concrete material modeling properties are presented in Tab. 4. The rein-
forcing steels are modeled by using the OpenSees Steel02 material model with symmetric bilinear
stress–strain relationship and strain hardening (Fig. 7). Steel modulus of elasticity is assumed to be
2.0 × 105 N/mm2, and the yield stress equal 335 MPa is assumed here. Steel material modeling proper-
ties used in the simulations are presented in Tab. 5.
In this work, the shear deformation is modeled in accordance with elastic theory (Berry and
Eberhard, 2008): ΔV = VL/GAseff, where V is the transverse shear force, L is the length of the element,
Aseff is the effective shear area of cross section (for circular hollow, Aseff = π  r  tw, where r and tw are
the mean radius and thickness of the circular hollow section, respectively) and G is the shear modulus
of concrete. A uniaxial elastic material is chosen to represent the sectional shear behavior associated
with stiffness of elasticity (Ks) equal to GAseff. This shear force-deformation relationship can be real-
ized by using the OpenSees’s section aggregator command, which aggregates the behavior of different
materials into a single section.
To avoid under-integration and convergence difficulties, five integration points are used along the
length of each of the nonlinear beam-column elements. The mass of the structure is lumped at the

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 SEISMIC FRAGILITY ASSESSMENT OF A TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

defined nodes with lateral degrees of freedom that define translational displacement. Rotational inertial
masses are not included, but some small values (e.g. 1e–10 kg) are assigned in order to avoid
numerical instabilities in the analyses. To consider the mass of non-structural components, equivalent
point mass is distributed at the corresponding nodes. It should be pointed out that the solid diaphragm
located at the bottom of the duct opening is not included in the numerical model for the sake of
simplicity, since the solid diaphragm is supported by four RC columns and its effect on the structural
behavior of the chimney under earthquake loads can be neglected.

Table 1. Details of different geometric parameters of the selected chimney.

Sketch of the selected Number Elevation Outside Thickness Thickness Thickness
chimney of (m) diameter of RC of insulation of the
(dimensions in m) section (m) shell (m) board (m) liner (m)
240.00 3.870 0.20 0.05 0.12
1 225.00 4.020 0.20 0.05 0.12
2 210.00 4.170 0.20 0.05 0.12
3 195.00 4.320 0.22 0.05 0.12
4 180.00 4.470 0.24 0.05 0.12
5 165.00 4.920 0.26 0.05 0.12
6 150.00 5.370 0.28 0.05 0.12
7 135.00 5.820 0.30 0.05 0.12
8 120.00 6.270 0.32 0.05 0.12
9 105.00 6.720 0.34 0.08 0.12
10 90.00 7.170 0.36 0.08 0.12
11 75.00 7.920 0.38 0.08 0.12
12 60.00 8.670 0.42 0.08 0.12
13 45.00 9.420 0.46 0.08 0.12
14 30.00 10.17.0 0.50 0.08 0.12
15 20.00 10.670 0.50 0.08 0.12
16 6.40 11.622 0.60 0.08 0.23
17 0.00 12.070 0.60 0.00 0.00

The symbol i represents the slope of chimney shell.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
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 C. ZHOU ET AL.

Table 2. Details of vertical bars of the selected chimney.

Elevation Outside-face vertical bars Inside-face vertical bars
(m)
Steel Steel Diameter and Steel Steel Diameter and
area (mm2) ratio (%) spacing (mm) area (mm2) ratio (%) spacing (mm)
225.00 14199.6 0.47121 16 at 200 3730.7 0.12380 12 at 400
210.00 15147.1 0.47030 16 at 200 3997.2 0.12411 12 at 400
195.00 16094.6 0.46949 16 at 200 4263.7 0.12437 12 at 400
180.00 21552.8 0.54552 18 at 200 4494.6 0.11376 12 at 400
165.00 25150.3 0.50312 18 at 200 5258.5 0.10519 12 at 400
150.00 28747.8 0.46687 18 at 200 6022.4 0.09781 12 at 400
135.00 39932.4 0.53769 20 at 200 6786.3 0.09138 12 at 400
120.00 44354.0 0.50365 20 at 200 10276.7 0.11669 14 at 400
105.00 48795.3 0.47388 20 at 200 11316.5 0.10990 14 at 400
90.00 53236.6 0.44745 20 at 200 12356.2 0.10385 14 at 400
75.00 73373.0 0.51218 22 at 200 14121.4 0.09857 14 at 400
60.00 82305.8 0.46343 22 at 200 15838.2 0.08918 14 at 400
45.00 91238.6 0.42316 22 at 200 22929.1 0.10634 16 at 400
30.00 129353.5 0.50274 25 at 200 25171.4 0.09783 16 at 400
20.00 137064.1 0.50206 25 at 200 33856.2 0.12401 18 at 400
10.00 147812.7 0.50107 25 at 200 36654.2 0.12425 18 at 400
0.00 158684.7 0.50060 25 at 200 39452.3 0.12446 18 at 400

Table 3. Details of circumferential reinforcement of the selected chimney.

Elevation (m) Outside-face circumferential reinforcement Outside-face circumferential reinforcement
Steel area Steel Diameter and Steel Steel Diameter and
(mm2) ratio (%) spacing (mm) area (mm2) ratio (%) spacing (mm)
225.00 565.5 0.25704 12 at 200 261.8 0.11900 10 at 300
210.00 565.5 0.25704 12 at 200 261.8 0.11900 10 at 300
195.00 565.5 0.25704 12 at 200 261.8 0.11900 10 at 300
180.00 769.7 0.3207 14 at 200 261.8 0.10908 10 at 300
165.00 769.7 0.29603 14 at 200 261.8 0.10069 10 at 300
150.00 769.7 0.27489 14 at 200 314.2 0.11220 10 at 250
135.00 769.7 0.25656 14 at 200 314.2 0.10472 10 at 250
120.00 1005.3 0.31416 16 at 200 377.0 0.11781 12 at 300
105.00 1005.3 0.29568 16 at 200 377.0 0.11088 12 at 300
90.00 1005.3 0.27925 16 at 200 377.0 0.10472 12 at 300
75.00 1005.3 0.26456 16 at 200 615.8 0.16204 14 at 250
60.00 1272.3 0.30294 18 at 200 615.8 0.14661 14 at 250
45.00 1570.8 0.34148 20 at 200 615.8 0.13386 14 at 250
30.00 1900.7 0.38013 22 at 200 769.7 0.15394 14 at 200
20.00 1900.7 0.38013 22 at 200 769.7 0.15394 14 at 200
10.00 2454.4 0.49087 25 at 200 769.7 0.15394 14 at 200
0.00 1570.8 0.31416 20 at 200 769.7 0.15394 14 at 200

The dynamic soil-structure interaction is neglected, and the base of the numerical model is fixed
against all degrees of freedom (the base of the structure is rigid). In addition, the second-order P-Delta
effect is taken into account to model dynamic instability. All nonlinear time history analyses of the
chimney model are conducted using the transient response analysis with a direct integration procedure.
A variable time step is used to avoid convergence problems. The integration procedure used in this
study for the dynamic analysis is the classical Newmark’s β method using γ = 0.5 and β = 0.25. Ray-
leigh damping is assumed with setting a damping ratio of ξ = 3% for the first and second modes of vi-
bration in the X direction of global coordinate system (Goyal and Maiti, 1997). For improved stability,
reliability and convergence in the results, the stiffness at the last committed state is used for the non-
linear analysis in this study.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 SEISMIC FRAGILITY ASSESSMENT OF A TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

Figure 5. The finite element model of the studied chimney constructed by OpenSees.

35

30
Concrete Stress (MPa)

25

20

15

10

-5
-0.002 0.000 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.010 0.012 0.014
Concrete Strain (mm/mm)

Figure 6. Assumed stress–strain behavior for concrete.

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DOI: 10.1002/tal
 C. ZHOU ET AL.

Table 4. Concrete material modeling properties.

Material Model in Ec f ’c ε0 fcu εu λ ft G
OpenSees (N/mm2) (MPa) (mm/mm) (MPa) (mm/mm) (MPa) (N/mm2)
Concrete Concrete02 2.6 × 104 29.4 0.002 5.88 0.0075 0.1 2.33 1.083 × 104
G is the shear modulus of concrete and is estimated as G = αEc, and a value of 0.4 recommended by Park and
Paulay (1975) for α is adopted here.

C
450
(b)
B
300 R0
Steel Stress (MPa)

150
(a) R E

-150
R

-300
A

-0.06 -0.04 -0.02 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08

Steel Strain (mm/mm)

Figure 7. Assumed stress–strain behavior for steel.

Table 5. Reinforcement steel material modeling properties.

Material Model in OpenSees Es (N/mm2) fy (MPa) b R CR1 CR2

5
Steel Steel02 2.0 × 10 335 0.01 18.5 0.925 0.15

5. DAMAGE STATE AND LIMIT STATE

An LS for a structure is defined as a limiting damage condition beyond which the given structure is no
longer capable of performing a desired function due to a given ground motion, whereas the damage
state that describes the level of damage to the structure defines the damage condition itself. The rela-
tionship between LS and the damage state is graphically interpreted in Fig. 8. Both the qualitative de-
scription of each damage state (China Ministry of Construction, 2009) and the quantitative measures of
the damage states and the corresponding LSs that define the threshold between different damage states
are required for obtaining the analytical fragility curves. In the present fragility analysis, the five most
frequently used damage states are considered, ‘None’, ‘Slight damage’, ‘Moderate damage’, ‘Exten-
sive damage’ and ‘Complete damage’, to describe the damage to the RC chimney under consideration,
and accordingly, there are four LS, identified herein by LS1, LS2, LS3 and LS4, respectively (Fig. 8).
With respect to the quantification of damage states, a number of researchers have proposed damage
indices (also known as a kind of EDP) for various types of structures to relate the different measures of
structural damage to different damage states, such as maximum inter-story drift, maximum roof dis-
placement and Park-Ang global damage indices (Williams and Sexsmith, 1995; Ghobarah et al.,
1999). However, all these damage measures may not be appropriate for the current RC chimney struc-
ture. This rough conclusion maybe can be justified by the following explanations. The maximum inter-

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 SEISMIC FRAGILITY ASSESSMENT OF A TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

Figure 8. Schematic diagram for damage state and corresponding limit states.

story drift measure is not applicable to RC chimney structure because limitations on inter-story drift are
primarily to avoid damage to drift-sensitive non-structural components (Goyal and Maiti, 1997). If
maximum roof displacement was used as the damages measures for RC chimney, misleading conclu-
sions would be inevitably drawn (Asgarian et al., 2010). This can be attributed to the fact that the RC
chimney is tall, slender cantilever type structure such that the higher modes have a very significant in-
fluence on the structural dynamic response, resulting in that roof displacement is not always the max-
imum displacement. Thus, the damage measures of maximum roof displacement are also inadequate
for RC chimney structure. For the best-known and most widely used Park-Ang damage index, it is dif-
ficult to specify a reasonable value for the strength deterioration parameter (βe) without experimental
calibration (Williams and Sexsmith, 1995).
The RC chimney is a kind of statically determinate structure and is bending dominated. In general,
structural damage of RC chimney due to earthquakes can be attributed to excessive section deforma-
tion. Therefore, in the current work, the section curvature ductility ratio (μ) (the μ is defined as the ratio
of the post-yield curvature to the curvature at the yield point of longitudinal reinforcement) based
directly on threshold values of steel reinforcement, and concrete material strain is considered as the
damage index to characterize those aforementioned damage states. The qualitative description of each
damage state for the studied RC chimney is given in Tab. 6, and the corresponding quantitative
measures for each LS are listed in Tab. 7. It should be noted that the steel and concrete strain employed
for the quantification of each defined LS is based on previous studies (Zahn, 1985; Priestley, 1997; Lu
et al., 2005). To find out the μ for each LS, sectional analysis under constant section axial load is
carried out for the top section (the cross-section 5 corresponding to the fifth integration point as shown

Table 6. Description of RC chimney structural damage states.

Structural damage state Description of damage
None damage No damage to the chimney structure
Slight damage Flexural or shear type hairline cracks at some elevations of the
chimney shell, damage requires no more than cosmetic repair
Moderate damage Flexural strengths of some critical sections achieved, limited ductility
developed, extensive distribution of small cracking on RC shell,
repair required to resume normal operation of the RC chimney
Extensive damage Large inelastic deformations, wide visible flexural or shear cracks,
serviceable function being seriously affected, difficult to repair or
repairs can be impractical and costly
Complete damage The RC chimney structure has collapsed or is in imminent danger
of collapse because of failure of some critical sections, the structure
losing its serviceable function

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 C. ZHOU ET AL.

Table 7. Definition of limit states for the RC chimney.

Limit state (LS) Steel strain Concrete strain Range of section Limit state
curvature ratio threshold values
LS1 0.001675 0.0020 1.00 1.00
LS2 0.015 0.0035 7.19 ~ 8.20 7.19
LS3 0.030 0.0050 13.78 ~ 15.83 13.78
LS4 0.060 0.0075 23.42 ~ 28.86 23.42
The limit tensile strain for the longitudinal reinforcement equal to 0.060 is adopted to avoid buckling of
compressive reinforcement and low cycle fatigue.

in Fig. 9) and bottom section of each element (the cross-section 1 corresponding to the first integration
point as shown in Fig. 9). From the sectional analysis, it is found that the range of the section curvature
ductility ratios for 95 control sections associated with each LS is relatively narrow as shown in the
third column of Tab. 7. Therefore, the lower value of each value range is adopted as the LS threshold
value for the convenience. Further details of the results of moment-curvature analysis for the 95 control
sections can be found in Zeng (2014).

6. GROUND MOTION RECORDS SELECTION FOR INCREMENTAL DYNAMIC ANALYSIS

The objective of probabilistic seismic fragility evaluation is to estimate the probabilities of occurrence
of different damage LS for a given structure at a designated site under all potential different levels of
ground motion intensity. Therefore, the selection of ground motions plays one of the most important
roles in acquiring reliable fragility curves based on numerical dynamic analysis. Although some
destructive Chinese earthquakes occurred recently, and some valuable seismic records were obtained,
strong motion records from sites where the chimney locates are practically non-existent. Accordingly,
the historical strong motion records are resorted to by this study. For the selection of the ground

Figure 9. The locations of the integration points (Note: the plastic length equal to 20% of the chimney
diameter is recommended based on experimental results (Wilson, 2003)).

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 SEISMIC FRAGILITY ASSESSMENT OF A TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

motions in this study, a three-step ground motion selection approach is taken. The first step in this ap-
proach is to select preliminary ground motion recordings based on a specified range of magnitude, dis-
tance and site condition. The second step is to perform an initial refinement of the selected records in
the previous steps according to the ground motion parameters, such as peak acceleration, earthquake
duration and the lowest frequency. The last step is to specify target response spectrum and define
the period range or interval of interest for which spectral matching is sought, and then spectrum
matching of the records obtained in the previous steps is carried out consistently with the definition
of the target spectrum to determine the eligible candidate records. However, it should be noted that
there may be cases where it would be advisable to relax the record selection criteria in order to ensure
that a reasonable number of records will be made available. Based on this pre-selection and the refine-
ment process, a total of 21 records from eight different earthquakes are taken from the Next Generation
Attenuation (NGA) database (PEER, 2010) with moment magnitudes ranging between 6.30 and 7.62
and site-to-source distances ranging between 10 and 100 km. All of the records bear no marks of direc-
tivity. The selected ground motion records and their basic characteristic parameters are listed in Tab. 8.
Shown in Fig. 10 are the mean elastic 5% damped response spectrum for the selected ground motion
records and comparison with acceleration response spectrum prescribed by Chinese seismic design
code for buildings GB 50011–2010 (China Ministry of Construction, 2010) (damping ratio ζ = 5%)
for the third category of site and the first category of seismic design (characteristic period value Tg =
3.4 s). It can be inferred that mean spectra are comparable satisfactorily with the design code spectrum
over the range T = 0–3.40 s. Therefore, ground motion records can be accepted as a population, which
represents the ground motion intensity expected in seismic zones of intensity 7 specified in the Chinese
seismic design code for buildings GB 50011–2010 (China Ministry of Construction, 2010).
In order to cover the entire range of the structural response from elasticity to global dynamic insta-
bility, each of the 21 selected ground motion records are scaled to PGAs of 0.1–2.0 g with increment of
0.1 g. Consequently, a total of 420 nonlinear time history analyses are performed.

7. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

7.1. Calibration of the numerical model of the reinforced concrete chimney

Identified modal parameters of the selected RC chimney are obtained by measuring responses of am-
bient vibration tests under wind. Fig. 11 shows the processed plot of acceleration versus frequency for
the acceleration data obtained from the acceleration measuring sensors installed at different locations
of the chimney. As can be seen, the natural frequencies of the first three modes are 0.293, 0.976 and
1.992 Hz, respectively, which can serve as a useful basis for calibrating the numerical model.
To ensure the availability of the simple lumped mass beam model, a finely meshed 3D finite element
model based on multi-layer shell element is constructed by using the finite element analysis package
ABAQUS (2006) (as shown in Fig. 12). The linear, four-node, doubly curved shell elements with
reduced integration and finite membrane strain formulation are employed to model the chimney shell.
Further, details can be found in Zeng (2014).
The first three natural periods of vibration obtained from OpenSees and ABAQUS and the measure-
ment data obtained by on-site ambient vibration tests are tabulated in Tab. 9. It should be noted that for
the ABAQUS model, only the odd natural periods are listed, due to the symmetry of the structure,
nearly duplicated natural modes are obtained. It can be observed from Tab. 9 that in the first three
modes of vibration, the chimney model is slightly stiffer in the simple OpenSees model than the
detailed ABAQUS model. The other observation from Tab. 9 is that the natural periods computed from
the finite element program generally are only slightly smaller than the ones identified from the tests. It
is possible that the indicated direction of the identified mode shape may not be the real dominant
direction of the mode. On the other hand, the lack of consistency between the analytical and test results
can also result from the difference between the real structure and the finite element model, concerning
the geometric and material properties, and boundary conditions. However, on the whole, there is a
good agreement between the measured and calculated results, which confirm the validity of the
OpenSees fiber model.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 Table 8. Details of selected ground motions used for the incremental dynamic analysis.
NGA# Event Station Mag Lowest Selected PGA (g) PGV (cm/s) PGD (cm)
frequency (Hz) component
169 Imperial Valley-06 Delta 6.53 0.06 FP 0.2518 21.7488 14.9079
175 Imperial Valley-06 EL Centro Array #12 6.53 0.12 FP 0.2305 29.4026 19.2721
719 Superstition Hills-02 Brawley Airport 6.54 0.16 FN 0.3175 29.8405 10.8447

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

721 Superstition Hills-02 EL Centro Imp. Co. Cent 6.54 0.12 FN 0.2623 44.1228 18.9174
729 Superstition Hills-02 Wildlife Liquef. Array 6.54 0.12 FN 0.1882 24.8275 13.794
737 Loma Prieta Agnews State Hospital 6.93 0.25 FN 0.2273 35.3965 16.5754
778 Loma Prieta Hollister Diff. Array 6.93 0.12 FP 0.2342 30.7189 7.5748
800 Loma Prieta Salinas-John and Work 6.93 0.12 FN 0.1905 27.0526 13.2754
832 Landers Amboy 7.28 0.10 FN 0.2215 29.732 11.2051
838 Landers Barstow 7.28 0.07 FN 0.2659 58.4477 53.5087
884 Landers Palm Spring Airport 7.28 0.07 FN 0.1795 27.9118 11.0229
C. ZHOU ET AL.

958 Northridge-01 Camarillo 6.69 0.10 FN 0.1977 22.1042 6.398

978 Northridge-01 Hollywood-Willoughby Ave 6.69 0.16 FN 0.2454 28.9075 5.1857
1149 Kocaeli-Turkey Atakoy 7.51 0.04 FP 0.3307 32.1943 23.0046
1177 Kocaeli-Turkey Zeytinburnu 7.51 0.07 FN 0.2155 37.1885 24.7286
1228 Chi-Chi-Taiwan CHY076 7.62 0.05 FN 0.1742 36.5977 32.5116
1762 Hector Mine Amboy 7.13 0.08 FP 0.2310 24.9417 18.7521
1810 Hector Mine Mecca-CVWD Yard 7.13 0.09 FP 0.2362 31.231 23.1922
2752 Chi-Chi-Taiwan-04 CHY101 6.20 0.19 FP 0.259 25.7521 17.8298
3271 Chi-Chi-Taiwan-06 CHY032 6.30 0.28 FN 0.1889 22.3176 9.7091
3276 Chi-Chi-Taiwan-06 CHY037 6.30 0.25 FP 0.2555 27.3096 8.8046

PGA, peak ground acceleration; PGV, peak ground velocity; PGD, peak ground displacement.

DOI: 10.1002/tal
Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
 SEISMIC FRAGILITY ASSESSMENT OF A TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

1.0

0.9
The design code spectra
0.8 Response spectra of single record

Spectral Acceleration Sa (g)

Mean minus one standard deviation
0.7 Mean plus one standard deviation
Mean response spectra of 21 records
0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0
Period T (s)

Figure 10. Mean pseudo-acceleration spectra plus and minus one standard deviation of the selected
records and comparison with the spectra provided by GB 50011–2010 (soil type III).

Figure 11. Measured modal frequencies for the first three modes of the selected chimney.

In Fig. 13, the first three mode shapes for the chimney model obtained from the eigenvalue analysis
of ABAQUS and OpenSees are illustrated. The results show that the three vibration modes are nearly
unidirectional, and the first vibration mode is translation mode and the second vibration and third
vibration modes are bending modes.

7.2. Analytical fragility curves

The seismic demands of the selected RC chimney are determined using the IDA procedure, which
requires a series of nonlinear dynamic time history analyses of a modeled structure for an ensemble
of ground motions, each scaled to many intensity levels (20 intensity levels are adopted in this study)
to cover the entire range of structural response, from elastic behavior through yielding to dynamic
instability (or until an LS ‘failure’ occurs). For a specified intensity level of each ground motion
record, nonlinear seismic analysis is carried out to evaluate the response of the selected chimney
(e.g., the section curvature ductility ratio). The ith section curvature ductility ratio μi is defined as
the ratio of the maximum section curvature ϕ max,i (ϕ max,i for each control section can be obtained
through time history analysis and can be output directly by OpenSees using the ‘EnvelopeElement
Recorder’ command) to the yield curvature ϕ y,i (ϕ y,i for each control section can be decided by
performing cross-section analyses)

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 C. ZHOU ET AL.

Figure 12. The 3D finite element model constructed by ABAQUS: (a) the chimney shell model, (b)
multi-layer shell element and (c) 4-node shell element (S4R).

Table 9. Comparison of natural periods of vibration.

Comparative object OpenSees ABAQUS Ambient test
Period of the first vibration mode (s) 3.386 3.231 3.413
Period of the second vibration mode (s) 1.010 0.968 1.025
Period of the third vibration mode (s) 0.453 0.435 0.502

ϕ max;i
μi ¼ (4)
ϕ y;i

The system ductility ratio of the structure μs is the largest value among all section curvature
ductility ratios
μs ¼ maxðμi Þ (5)

In the present study, the system ductility ratio of the structure μs is used to represent the structural
response. This is because any section failure would lead to the failure of the chimney structure (e.g.
structural collapse). Results of a total of about 420 nonlinear time history analyses, conducted on the
numerical models of the chimney for the selected ground motion records, are plotted as IDA curves
and are shown in Fig. 14. The upper limit of the PGA of the scaled ground motions is PGA = 2.0 g,
which covers IMs corresponding to design level earthquake and MCE. The variety and dispersion of
the results obtained for different ground motions as shown by these curves are remarkable. However,
it can also be observed that all curves exhibit a linear elastic behavior before significant nonlinearity
occurs. On the other hand, in the inelastic range of response, the IDA curves are generally dissimilar,
some are displaying a softening behavior with a gradual degradation toward collapse, and the others
are displaying a weaving behavior indicative of ‘excessive hardening’ and ‘softening’ of the
chimney structure.
Although each of the IDA curves is a distinct deterministic unit, the natural random variability
within the earthquake records requires a statistical assessment for demand. The IDA curves developed

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 SEISMIC FRAGILITY ASSESSMENT OF A TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

240
220
200 Deformed shape

Chimney height level (m)

Undeformed shape
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
-0.04 -0.03 -0.02 -0.01 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04
Chimney displacement in the X direction (m)

240
220
200 Deformed shape
Chimney height level (m)
Undeformed shape
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
-0.04 -0.03 -0.02 -0.01 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04
Chimney displacement in the X direction (m)

240
220
200 Deformed shape
Chimney height level (m)

Undeformed shape
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
-0.04 -0.03 -0.02 -0.01 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04
Chimney displacement in the X direction (m)

(a) (b)
Figure 13. The first three mode shapes for the chimney model: (a) ABAQUS and (b) OpenSees modes.

for the considered ground motion records need to be summarized by defining the 16%, 50% and 84%
IDA curves. This summary technique enabled compression of the enormous data to a probabilistic
distribution of a demand parameter given an IM. Moreover, normally engineering design is based
on the median, mean or 84%. The fractile curves are obtained by calculating the 16%, 50% and
84% fractile values of the demand parameters, μ (the maximum of absolute values of section curvature
ductility factors for the 95 control sections), for a specific ground motion IMs, PGA. Fig. 14(b) shows

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 C. ZHOU ET AL.

3 3
2.8 16% fractile
2.8
50% fractile
2.6 2.6 84% fractile

Peak ground acceleration, PGA (g)

Peak ground acceleration, PGA (g)

2.4 2.4
2.2 2.2
2 2
1.8 1.8
1.6 1.6
1.4 1.4
1.2 1.2
1 1
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
Max section curvature ductility factor, Max section curvature ductility factor,
(a) (b)
0.3
0.28 16% fractile
0.26 50% fractile
Peak ground acceleration, PGA (g)

0.24 84% fractile

0.22
0.2
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2
Max section curvature ductility factor,
(c)

Figure 14. IDA curves of PGA plotted against max section curvature ductility factor: (a) the IDA
curves for the RC chimney structure; (b) the summary of the IDA curves into their 16%, 50% and
84% fractile curves; and (c) zoomed view of the aforementioned fractile IDA curves between μ = 0.0
and μ = 2.0.

the 16%, 50% and 84% fractile IDA curves for the selected chimney. The fractile IDA curves can also
represent the seismic demand curves of the chimney and may be used to evaluate its performance by
comparing with permissible section curvature ductility demands at any specified intensity and proba-
bility level. For example, given the MCE intensity of PGA = 0.22 g, 16% of the records would produce
μmax ≤ 0.73; 50% of the records would produce μmax ≤ 1.10; and 84% of the records would produce
μmax ≤ 1.83 for the selected chimney (Fig. 14(c)).
According to the methodology described earlier (Section 2), the parameters of lognormal distribu-
tion for each LS with respect to PGA are obtained, as shown in Tab. 10. Finally, the seismic fragility
curves for the studied RC chimney are generated using Eq. 3, and the plots are shown in Fig. 15 and
16. From Fig. 16, it can be observed that the slight damage state will be the most probable damage
experienced by the RC chimney structure considered. For the design basic acceleration of ground
motion of 0.1 g at the 10% in a 50-year probability level, the slight damage state probabilities are
1.5% while the slight damage state probability is slightly high with a value of 44% for the MCE with
PGA = 0.22 g and an exceedance probability of 2% in 50 years. However, the damage probabilities
for moderate damage state to collapse for both PGA = 0.1 g and PGA = 0.22 g are approximately zero,
which reveal that the RC chimney structure has considerable ductility capacity and hence is capable
to withstand a strong earthquake with some structural damages, but without failure. Finally, from
Fig. 15, it can be highlighted that the seismic vulnerability of the RC chimney increases with
increased PGA for each one of the four given LSs (LS1, LS2, LS3 and LS4). On the other hand,

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 SEISMIC FRAGILITY ASSESSMENT OF A TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CHIMNEY

Table 10. Parameters of fragility curves for the studied chimney with respect to PGA.
Lognormal Engineering demand parameter (EDP)
random
variables EDP ≥ EDP ≥ LS2 EDP ≥ LS3 EDP ≥ LS4
LS1 (slight) (moderate) (extensive) (collapse)
λ ζ λ ζ λ ζ λ ζ
PGA 0.23 0.29 0.60 0.46 1.16 0.48 2.10 0.49

Probability of Exceeding a Limit State (%) 100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30
LS1
20 LS2
LS3
10
LS4
0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0
Intensity Measure PGA (g)

Figure 15. Analytical seismic fragility curves of the chimney under consideration.

60
Probability of Exceeding a Limit State (%)

55
50
45
40 LS1
LS2
35 LS3
PGA=0.1g
30 LS4
25
20 PGA=0.22g

15
10
5
0
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40
Intensity Measure PGA (g)

Figure 16. The probabilities of damage states for the design level earthquake and MCE.

at a particular PGA level, the probability that the structure will be damaged decreases as the severity
of damage level rises.
On the other hand, it should be noted that the studied RC chimney was built more than 30 years ago
in which the knowledge about the ductility of RC chimney was not much developed than nowadays,
and it is widely believed that such kind of constructions would behave in a brittle manner when subject
to severe earthquake excitation (Wilson, 2003); thus, it can be thought that the relatively low damage
probabilities for moderate damage state to collapse for both PGA = 0.1 g and PGA = 0.22 g maybe
result from a relatively conservative design philosophy. However, a further study on the ductile
behavior of RC chimney must be necessary.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 C. ZHOU ET AL.

8. CONCLUSION AND REMARKS

In this paper, a procedure for the seismic fragility assessment of a tall RC chimney was presented. The
corresponding numerical analytical model was established based on nonlinear beam-column elements
using the finite element code OpenSees. The section curvature ductility ratio was considered as the
damage index. Based on material strain and sectional analysis, four LSs were defined for five damage
rank. Nonlinear IDA of the studied RC chimney was carried out using a series of 21 ground motions
that were scaled to many intensity levels. The PGA-based seismic fragility curves of the RC chimney
structure were constructed assuming a lognormal distribution. The results of the analyses described in
this study allow the following conclusions to be drawn:

(1) The simplified criteria adopted for constructing the nonlinear analytical mode of the RC chimney
seem reasonable and led to considerable efficiency and robustness of the performed analyses. The
simple 2D fiber model is useful and effective for estimating inelastic response of the RC chimney.
(2) For the design level earthquake of 0.1 g with a 10% exceedance probability in 50 years, the slight
damage state probabilities are 1.5%, while the slight damage state probability is slightly high with
a value of 44% for the MCE with PGA = 0.22 g and an exceedance probability of 2% in 50 years.
(3) The damage probabilities for moderate damage state to collapse for both PGA = 0.1 g and PGA =
0.22 g are approximately zero, which reveal that the RC chimney structure has considerable
ductility capacity and hence is capable to withstand a strong earthquake with some structural
damages, but without failure.
In summary, the study presents a detailed procedure for analytical fragility analysis of RC chimney,
which can easily be applied to other similar type structure. However, future studies will be necessary to
look at the impact of the uncertainties in material and structural properties and soil-structure interaction.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Financial support (project no. 51178029) from the National Natural Science Foundation of China is
greatly acknowledged. In addition, the authors would also like to thank the reviewers for their valuable
comments and suggestions.

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AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Changdong Zhou is a professor of structural engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing,

China. He received his doctoral degree from the Dalian University of Technology in 2003 and worked
as a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, from August 2011 to
August 2012. His research interests focus on seismic analysis, appraisement and strengthening of civil
engineering.

Xulang Zeng is a graduate student in structural engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing,
China. He received his master’s degree from Beijing Jiaotong University in July 2014.

Qinglong Pan is a graduate student in structural engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China.
He received his bachelor’s degree from the Kunming University of Science and Technology in July 2012.

Bin Liu is a graduate student in structural engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China. He
received his master’s degree from Beijing Jiaotong University in July 2014.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. (2014)
DOI: 10.1002/tal