Essais in situ et analyses non-linéaires d'un bâtiment multi-étagé endommagé lors du séisme d'Haïti du 12 janvier 2010

Abstract

Despite all the damages encountered during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 12-storey reinforced-concrete Digicel building behaved well, sustaining only reparable damages. Visual assessment and ambient vibration tests were carried out to characterize the damages sustained and to identify the building's key dynamics properties (natural vibration frequencies, mode shapes, and damping ratios). ETABS was used to generate FE models before and after the AVT to evaluate the capabilities of common modelling assumptions to predict the dynamic behaviour of structures. Manual model updating was carried out to present a model representing the building's actual dynamic behaviour. The study showed that the FE method is reliable for predicting the dynamic behaviour of structures, but is very sensitive to the assumptions used during modelling. The model could predict the vibration frequencies precisely, but an accurate representation of the mode shapes required careful model updating. The updated model lead the way to a more sophisticated model able to produce nonlinear time history analyses using the software SeismoStruct. The numerical analyses helped assessing the capabilites of common models to reproduce such events and damages, explaining the observed damages and estimating the probable intensity of the tremor. Several nonlinear analyses involving various ground motion intensities were conducted and the results were compared with the damages reported during the on-site survey. The overall response of the mixed stiff frame-wall structure was clearly dominated by the high stiffness of the shear walls, showing that this type of structural system helps in keeping reasonable inter-storey drift levels. Overall, the building's structure seems to have responded linearly to all the ground motions investigated, but deformation incompatibilities at the interface between beams and shear walls lead to important local damages.