State-of-the-Art Reliability Analysis of Structural Drift Control Corresponding to the Critical Excitations

As a matter of fact, structural drift is a random variable that is associated with several bases of the uncertainties related to the loading excitation and structural resistance. Hence, it seems essential to utilize the probabilistic philosophy to provide a design criterion of control the structural drift. The current study was conducted to propose a probabilistic approach to control the structural drift subjected to seismic loading. The main contribution of this manuscript is to propose a new sophisticated design criterion to control the structural drift using the reliability analysis. As-a-state-of-the-art, a new limit state function is established to be utilized for reliability analysis of the considered extreme event. To do so, several different steel frames are analyzed and investigated using the existing design criterion of the ASCE07 code. Also, the analysis of the critical excitations is conducted to deliberate the required target reliability indices for the considered limit state function. Accordingly, the reliability index spectrum is illustrated which revealed that the drift of the structures is related to the fundamental structural period. Eventually, based on the consistency of the reliability index consideration a stylish formula is proposed to control the drift reliability index corresponding to the target reliability indices constraints in the range of 2 to 4 (2 ≤ β ≤ 4). In addition to the main advantage of the proposed design criterion which is to provide a consistent range of the reliability level for different structures. Indeed, the analysis of the critical excitation shows that the reliability index spectrum varies by the fundamental frequency of the structure. Hence, in this research, a new structural drift criterion was proposed to sophisticatedly present the design criterion based on the fundamental structural period. Also, the proposed design criterion contains the deflection amplification factor to conclude the comprehensive inter-story drift control.