EmpiricaI estimates of dynamic parameters

on a Iarge set of European buiIdings

M. Mucciarelli
1
, M.R. Gallipoli
1, 2
, A. Gosar
3
, B. Sket-Motnikar
3
, J. Roser
3
, P. Zupancic
3
,S. Prevolnik
4
,
M. Herak
4
, J. Stipcevic
4
, D. Herak
4
, Z. Milutinovic
5
, T. Olumceva
5
1 DiSGG, University oI Basilicata, Potenza, Italy
2 IMAA-CNR, Tito Scalo, Italy
3 EARSO, Ljubljana, Slovenia
4 Dept. oI Geophysics, University oI Zagreb, Croatia
5 IZIIS, University Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Republic oI Macedonia
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During a three year-period, the participants to a NATO Science Ior Peace project perIormed ambient
noise measurements inside buildings in Iour European nations. This paper reports the results relevant to
reinIorced concrete (RC) buildings with height in the range 1-20 Iloors. The total number oI buildings
surveyed is 244. The most striking Ieature is the similarity oI the height-period relationships in the Iour
countries, that allowed to treat the measurements as a single database. We Iound no signiIicant
correlation with other variables, and calculated a regression that is very similar to other empirical
height-period relationship and quite diIIerent Irom code provisions and theoretical models.
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IdentiIying the sites where a local ampliIication oI seismic shaking will occur and identiIying the
buildings which will result the weakest under the seismic shaking is the only strategy that allows to
eIIectively deIend people Irom earthquake damage at an aIIordable cost, by applying selective
reinIorcement only to the constructions that need it.
To mitigate seismic risk in urban areas, it is important to estimate dynamic parameters oI buildings and
underlying soils in order to identiIy possible resonance phenomena. This resonance approach was used
to study the damage pattern oI past earthquakes, see e.g. Mucciarelli and Monachesi (1999) Ior the
1998 Bovec earthquake, Panou et al.(2006) Ior the 1978 Thessaloniki earthquake, Navarro et al.(2007)
Ior the 1993-1994 Adra earthquake. The search Ior resonace has been recently introduced in
microzonation studies oI cities such as Granada (Spain, Navarro !" $%., 2004) or Senigallia (Italy,
Mucciarelli and Tiberi, 2006).
The dynamic behaviour oI a building in the elastic domain can also be useIul to calibrate the starting
point oI non-linear analyses or to assess its vulnerability. Boutin and Hans (2008) showed that taking
Draft of the paper published on Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering04/2012; 8(3):593-607
The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com
into account the dynamic parameters that envisage the most adequate beam model, and taking the
maximum tensile and compression strains oI concrete and steel as damage criteria, it is possible to
quantiIy the levels that onset the structural damages and the plastic hinge, thus providing a useIul tool
Ior vulnerability diagnosis.
The best method to determine the dynamic parameters is oI course to record earthquakes inside
permanently monitored building, but this is a costly option, deserved to a limited number oI case
studies (see e.g.,; Celebi, 2000; TriIunac et al., 2001a; 2001b; Clinton et al., 2006, Herak and Herak,
2009). A possible alternative to permanent monitoring is to perIorm noise measurements and estimates
the Iundamental period and damping with diIIerent techniques: Horizontal-to-Vertical Spectral Ratio
(HVSR, Castro et al., 1998; Gallipoli et al., 2004; Di Giulio et al., 2005), Standard Spectral Ratio
(SSR, Parolai et al., 2005), Non Parametric Damping Analysis (NonPaDAn, Mucciarelli and Gallipoli,
2007) and HalI Bandwidth method (HBW, Clough and Penzien, 1975).
In this context, the main purposes oI the NATO Science Ior Peace project named 'Assessment of
Seismic Site Amplification and Seismic Building Julnerabilitv in the FYR Macedonia, Croatia and
Slovenia were:
1) to validate a procedure based on a small number oI ambient noise measurements with the aim to
obtain at least the Iundamental Irequencies in horizontal orthogonal directions and the relevant
damping with the minimum time and instrumental resources, comparing when possible the
results with those derived Irom earthquake recordings;
2) to perIorm these measurements on a large set oI buildings;
3) to take ambient noise measurements on soil in order to look Ior possible cases oI building-soil
resonances.
The results relevant to the validation phase have been published by Gallipoli et al. (2008). For sake oI
brevity we report here just their main conclusions: a) the comparison on a test building between
ambient noise and weak-motion earthquake recordings shows a very small decrease in the Iundamental
Irequencies, and an increase in damping that is not statistically signiIicant, and b) analysing the
perIormances oI the Iour diIIerent techniques mentioned above on 80 typical Italian buildings, all the
methods gave very similar results. HVSR and HBW in Iew instances were not able to return the two
Iundamental horizontal Irequencies and the damping, respectively. On the other hand, SSR appears to
be the more reliable method Ior assessing Irequency, whereas NonPaDAn gives better results Ior
damping estimates, both returning physically sound values with a reasonable diIIerence on orthogonal
components.
The results concerning the presence oI soil-building resonance are described by Gosar et al. (2009) and
Herak et al. (2009) while Albarello et al. (2009) report the experience gained on ambient noise
measurements on soils Irom the methodological point oI view. This paper Iocuses on the statistical
analysis oI the large data set acquired with measurements on buildings.
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During the project the team acquired several hundred measurements on buildings. Here we describe the
results relevant only to RC building with height in the range 1-20 Iloors. The measurement were
perIormed in the Iour participating countries, so the analysed data base comprises 65 buildings Irom
Italy, 47 Irom Slovenia, 62 Irom Croatia and 70 Irom Republic oI Macedonia. For all building we
determined the Iundamental period on the two orthogonal components. For some buildings it was
possible to extract some more inIormation, according to the number oI instruments installed. The data
acquisition on this large data set brought diIIerent experience that were gathered in a manual Ior Iield
crews. Appendix 1 reports the highlights oI the experience gained, while Appendix 2 is a table
reporting all the data here discussed. Figure 1 reports the Iundamental period vs. the height Ior all the
buildings here considered (Ior each building we selected the largest oI the two orthogonal components).
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
TA (65)
SLO (47)
HR (62)
MK (70)
Height (m)
P
e
r
i
o
d

(
s
)
Fig. 1 Height-period scatter plot for all the 244 RC buildings surveved
Italian and Slovenian teams provided more data in the range 2-5 Iloors, while Croatia and Republic oI
Macedonia teams covered more the taller buildings. The distribution is then Iairly sampled all over the
height range considered. We then investigated the empirical relationship between the two variables,
considering three typical Iormulation provided by other authors in diIIerent parts oI the world.
!a!
b
|1|
!ab! |2|
!a! |3|
The better Iit provided by |1| and|2| is marginal with respect to the need oI an extra parameter. The
best statistical result is then provided by eq. |3|, in the Iorm
!0.016" |4|
We perIormed also a robust Iit with varying weight schemes Ior the statistical outliers, but the Iit
proved to be very stable, returning a variation just on the Iourth digit. A boostrap procedure returned
the 95 conIidence limits Ior the parameter a , equal to 0.015 and 0.0175
The next step was the investigation oI possible relationships among the residuals and other variables.
Fig. 2 shows that the residuals are Iairly distributed according to a Gaussian distribution.
- 0 . 5 - 0 . 4 - 0 . 3 - 0 . 2 - 0 . 1 0 0 . 1 0 . 2 0 . 3 0 . 4 0 . 5
0
0 . 1
0 . 2
0 . 3
0 . 4
0 . 5
0 . 6
0 . 7
0 . 8
0 . 9
1
D a t a
C
u
m
u
l
a
t
i
v
e

p
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y


r e s i d u a l s d a t a
n o r m a l
Fig. 2 Distribution of the residual vs. a normal distribution with 0 mean
Fig. 3a shows that there is no secondary correlation between residuals and height, while Iig. 3b reports
the scatter oI residuals vs. the second mode, i.e. the period in the orthogonal direction.
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All these analyses conIirm the robustness oI the obtained regression, and also that the variance in the
relationship it is almost explained by the single variable used.
Our result is strikingly similar to that obtained by Navarro *, ')$ (2007) Ior Spanish buildings, that
proposed the relationship !0.045"# with N equal to the number oI Iloors. We compared our
relationship also with the provisions oI EC8 (Fig. 4), reports the comparison, The extension oI the data
set conIirms the Iindings oI Gallipoli *, ')$ (2008) that concluded that ambient vibration data Ior RC
buildings provide very similar in results in diIIerent countries, and conIirmed the mismatch with
theoretical estimates and code provisions. We leave to another paper (Masi and Vona, 2008) the
comparison with other relationships, including results obtained Irom theoretical modelling.
Finally we considered the damping associated to the Iundamental period. ConIirming the Iindings Irom
Gallipoli *, ')$ (2008), the standard assumption oI a 5 damping is Iully justiIied: Iig. 5a shows that
the empirical distribution oI the observed damping is Iit by a log-normal distribution whose mean is 4.8
($1.33, %0.7). The scatter plot oI damping vs. Iundamental period seems to provide an hint oI a
inverse relationship, but the presence oI many outliers does not allow to retrieve a statistically
signiIicant result. Further investigations are needed to explore iI there is a physical reason Ior the
observed outliers.
0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0
- 0 . 5
- 0 . 4
- 0 . 3
- 0 . 2
- 0 . 1
0
0 . 1
0 . 2
0 . 3
0 . 4
0 . 5
H e i g h t ( m )
R
e
s
i
d
u
a
l
s



y = - 0 . 0 0 0 6 * x + 0 . 0 1 7
0 0 . 2 0 . 4 0 . 6 0 . 8 1 1 . 2 1 . 4
- 0 . 5
- 0 . 4
- 0 . 3
- 0 . 2
- 0 . 1
0
0 . 1
0 . 2
0 . 3
0 . 4
0 . 5
T 2 ( s )
R
e
s
i
d
u
a
ls


y = - 0 . 0 0 9 3 * x - 0 . 0 2 5
Fig 4 Comparison among the Height/Period relationship here proposed and other functions
Fig. 5a (left) Cumulative distribution of observed damping and fit of a log-normal distribuition.
Fig. 5b (right) Scatter plot of damping vs. fundamental period
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
This paper, lower bound
This paper,upper bound
Navarro et al. (2007)
EC8
Height (m)
P
e
r
i
o
d

(
s
)
0 2 4 6 8 1 0 1 2 1 4 1 6 1 8 2 0
0
0 . 0 2
0 . 0 4
0 . 0 6
0 . 0 8
0 . 1
0 . 1 2
0 . 1 4
0 . 1 6
0 . 1 8
0 . 2
D a t a
D
e
n
s
i
t
y


D a m p i n g ( % )
L o g n o r m a l
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
0.0
5.0
10.0
15.0
20.0
25.0
Period (s)
D
a
m
p
i
n
g

(
%
)
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We collected ambient noise recordings on 244 buildings in Italy, Slovenia, Croazia and Republic oI
Macedonia. The height-period relationship we determined is robust and very similar to another
relationship proposed Ior Southern European buildings by Navarro et al. (2007). ConIirming the results
oI Gallipoli et al. (2008), who analysed a Iirst subset oI our data set, we Iound that our relationship is
very diIIerent Irom European code provisions (EC8). This diIIerence cannot be ascribed to soil-
structure interaction, because the Irequency determined by microtremors is representative oI the
dynamic oI the whole system. Nor the low level oI shaking can be invoked: the ratio between our
relationship and EC8 values is much higher than the period increase a building may suIIer due to
damage up to incipient collapse.
Finally, the distribution oI observed damping is well Iit by a log normal distribution. The average
observed damping is 4.8 oI critical, justiIying the standard 5 assumption. However the dispersion
oI the damping could make worthwhile in-situ measurements when an existing building have to be
modelled or retroIitted.
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This work was supported by grant NATO Science Ior Peace 980857 'Assessment of Seismic Site
Amplification and Seismic Building Julnerabilitv in the FYR Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia
0+1+2+#$+'
Boutin C. and S. Hans (2008) How Far Ambient Noise Measurement May Help to Assess Building
Vulnerability? in Increasing Seismic Safetv bv Combining Engineering Technologies and
Seismological Data, M. Mucciarelli, M. Herak and J. Cassidy eds., Springer, ISBN
978-1-4020-9196-4, 151-180
Castro R.R., Mucciarelli M., Pacor F., Federici P. and A. Zaninetti (1998); Determination oI the
characteristic Irequency oI two dams located in the region oI Calabria, Italy, Bull. Seism. Soc.
Am., 88, 2, 503-511.
elebi M. (2000) Seismic Instrumentation oI Buildings U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report
00-157, last download at http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-Iile/oI00-157/oI00-157.pdI
Clinton J.F., BradIord S.C., Heaton T.H. and J. Favela (2006); The Observed Wander oI the Natural
Frequencies in a Structure, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 96, 237257.
Clough R. W., J. Penzien (1975); Dynamics oI structures, II Ed., Mac Graw-Hill, New York.
Gallipoli M.R., M. Mucciarelli and M. Vona (2008) Empirical estimate oI Iundamental Irequencies and
damping Ior Italian buildings, Earthquake Engng Struct. Dyn. DOI: 10.1002/eqe.878
Herak M. and D., Herak, (2009) Continuous monitoring oI dynamic parameters oI the DGFSM-
building (Zagreb, Croatia) , submitted to Bull. Earthq. Eng.
Mucciarelli M., G. Monachesi (1999) The Bovec (Slovenia) earthquake, April 1998: a preliminary
corrrelation among damage, ground motion ampliIication and building Irequencies, Journ.
Earthq. Eng., 3, 317-327.
Mucciarelli M., Tiberi PP. (2007) Microzonazione sismica di Senigallia. Tecnoprint Ancona,; 420 pp2
CD-Rom.
Mucciarelli M. and M.R. Gallipoli (2007); Damping estimate Ior simple buildings through non-
parametric analysis oI a single ambient vibration recording, Annals Geoph, 50, 259-266.
Navarro M, Vidal F., Feriche M., Enomoto T., Sanchez F.J., Matsuda I. (2004) Expected groundRC
building structures resonance phenomena in Granada city (southern Spain). Proceedings oI the
13th World ConIerence on Earthquake Engineering, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 16 August 2004.
Paper No. 3308.
Navarro M., F. Vidal, T. Enomoto, F. J. Alcala, A. Garcia-Jerez, F. J. Sanchez, N. Abeki (2007)
Analysis oI the weightiness oI site eIIects on reinIorced concrete (RC) building seismic
behaviour: The Adra town example (SE Spain); Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics,
36, 1363-1383.
Panou AA, Theodulidis N, Hatzidimitriou P, Stylianidis K, Papazachos CB (2005). Ambient noise
horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio in site eIIects estimation and correlation with seismic damage
distribution in urban environment: the case oI the city oI Thessaloniki (northern Greece). Soil
Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering; 25, 261274.
Parolai S., Facke A., Richwalski S.M. and L. Stempniewski (2005); Assessing the Vibrational
Frequencies oI the Holweide Hospital in the City oI Cologne (Germany) by Means oI Ambient
Seismic Noise Analysis and FE modelling, Natural Hazard, 34, 217-230.
TriIunac M.D., Ivanovic S.S., Todorovska M.I., Novikova E.I. and A.A. Gladkov (1999); Experimental
evidence Ior Ilexibility oI building Ioundation supported by concrete Iriction piles, Soil
Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 18, 169187.
Appendix 1 : EXPERIENCE GAINED IN 3 YEARS OF MEASUREMENTS ON BUILDINGS
1. PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF THE BUILDING WITH THE HELP OF STANDARD FORM
BeIore making any kind oI measure is necessary to retrieve some important characteristics oI the
building (age, height, structural system, etc.). During the project, we prepared two standard survey
Iorm, diIIering in the amount oI data requested and in the engineering skills required to the surveyors.
The two Iorms are available on the project site, http://nato.gIz.hr.
2. HOW MANY MEASUREMENTS AND HOW TO TAKE THEM
We did a diIIerent number oI measures according to the degree oI precision we wanted in the estimate
oI the translational modes. It is necessary at least a single measure atop the building. II we want to
reach a Iair knowledge oI the modes, a pair oI measurements at the lowest Iloor or on the Iree-Iield and
on the higher Iloor, are suIIicient. The best solution is to do measurements at each Iloor and on Iree
Iield. To estimate the rotational modes it is necessary to make two measurements, at the centre oI the
ground Iloor and at the corner/centre oI the top Iloor. To estimate the modal shapes it is necessary at
least one measurement at each Iloor in asynchronous way, while the best solution is to do one
measurements at each Iloor, synchronous and with a base as a reIerence station.
A single measurement atop the building is a Iair solution to estimate the damping oI the main
translational modes.
In reinIorced concrete buildings, the instrument should be placed near column-beam junction or near
the centre oI stiIIness (to estimate the translational modes); do not put the instrument at the centre oI
the rooms to avoid membrane modes oI the Iloors (aIIecting mainly the vertical component). II the
stairwell is detached Irom the Irame oI the building, avoid to perIorm the measurement in it; be careIul
to the non-structural element (Iloor tiling, Iloating Iloors, piping); be careIul to ground Iloor, it could be
at a height diIIerent Irom the level oI Ioundations. Flexible Iloors in masonry building could be a
problem with respect to reinIorced concrete ones. Be careIul about connection between structural
elements, or you might measure local modes (e.g., out-oI-plane movements oI a detached wall).
3. CONDITIONS TO FULFIL DURING MEASUREMENTS
BeIore to perIorm measurements it is important to level the instrument (be careIul oI possible tilting oI
terrace Iloors), ensuring the proper coupling between the device and the point oI measurement, avoid to
touch the semsor or to produce a strong noise near it. The usage oI the building is not a problem, except
iI many people are walking nearby the instrument causing point loads on the Iloors. . II all the above
conditions are IulIilled, 10 minutes oI ambient noise measurement at 128 Hz are a good compromise
between accuracy and logistic needs. II not, longer measurements are advisable in order to possible
remove Iaulty piece oI recording during the processing phase. Strong wind or traIIic noise could
provide larger input and thus much resolved data processing. For modal shape estimation, variable
weather conditions (e.g. strong wind gusts) require the use oI a reIerence station at the base oI the
building in synchronous mode.
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The Iollowing tables highlight the reliability oI techniques to estimates the dynamic characteristics. (Ior
more details see Gallipoli et !"#, 2008). Generally the SSR and HVSR are the more appropriate
techniques to estimate the main translational modes. II the building is small and very stiII, avoid
HVSR, because only SSR can avoid Iake soil-building resonance due to the little mass. SSR is the best
choice to estimate the rotational modes. For modal shape estimation synchronous measurements gave
more reliable results than asynchronous ones. To estimate dampings, the NonPaDAn technique seems
better because the damping estimates are less dispersed and grouped around values that are more
realistic than those estimated with HalI-Band. HalI-band may also suIIer oI close translational and
rotational modes.


Table 1: summary oI the reliability oI diIIerent techiques to analysed ambient noise data.
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