Abstract | A seismic fragility assessment methodology is presented for equipment-supporting reinforced concrete and steel buildings that are typically encountered in oil refineries. Using a suite of hazard-consistent ground motions and reduced-order models, incremental dynamic analysis is performed to obtain the seismic demand of the structural systems examined. Appropriate drift- and floor acceleration-sensitive failure modes are considered to define the limit state capacities of the supporting structure and the nested non-structural process equipment. Special care is exercised on the demand and capacity representation of structural and non-structural components, offering a transparent roadmap for undertaking analytical fragility assessment for equipment-supporting buildings typical to an oil refinery. The findings and the proposed methodology can be exploited by designers and facility managers for mitigating the risk of failure prior to the occurrence of an earthquake event, for designing the pertinent structures and their non-structural components by means of a risk-aware performance-based methodology, or as feed data in early warning systems.

Abstract | The seismic fragility is assessed for typical high-rise stacks encountered in oil refineries, namely process towers, chimneys, and flares. Models of varying complexity were developed for the structures of interest, attempting to balance computational complexity and accuracy regarding the structural dynamic and strength properties. The models were utilized along with a set of hazard-consistent ground motions for evaluating the seismic demands through incremental dynamic analysis. Demand/capacity-related uncertainties were explicitly accounted for in the proposed framework. Damage states were defined for each of the examined structure considering characteristic serviceability and ultimate limit states. Τhe proposed resource-efficient roadmap for the analytical seismic fragility assessment of typical high-rise stacks, as well as the findings of the presented research work are available to be exploited in seismic risk assessment studies of oil refineries.