Dataset: A cost-effective method for determining the seismic structural health of high-rise buildings

A rapid estimate of the damage state of a building after an earthquake event is of crucial importance, having the potential to save lives, reduce injuries, and mitigate costs associated with structural damage and economic downtime. Visually determining the damage state accurately is often difficult, and so instrumentation can be installed to estimate the extent and locations of damage. However, the current minimum requirements of industry standard instrumentation layouts have thus far proved to be inadequate in providing sufficient information about the health of a structure after an extreme event. This paper investigates a simple, computationally inexpensive method for determining the interstory drift of all floors of a high-rise building using minimal instrumentation. The methodology proposed is applied to the Atwood building, a 20-story structure located in a highly seismic region of Anchorage, Alaska, that has been fitted with an extensive seismic monitoring system. The simulated results are shown to provide reasonable results of displacement profile of a structure (with time) for the elastic performance of the building. Importantly, the displacement profile allows a direct calculation of inter-story drift, which can indicate the location and state of damage of the building.