Steel and reinforced concrete buildings are popular structural systems. The design of these buildings is regulated by deterministic building codes. In this context, it is established that if building codes are followed, the structure will resist demands without collapsing. However, no regulation is required to control the damage of structures in terms of performance criteria. In this paper, the seismic performance and structural reliability of both steel and reinforced concrete buildings, respectively, are analyzed as a benchmark case of study. Both buildings are designed in an earthquake-prone area for two soil types, respectively. Subsequently, nonlinear dynamic analyzes are conducted and the seismic responses of the models are determined in terms of inter-story drift. To obtain seismic responses, eleven characteristic ground motions of the region are selected corresponding to three performance levels: (1) immediate occupancy, (2) life safety, and (3) collapse prevention, respectively. It was documented that the resulting maximum inter-story drift was much lower than the one obtained from modal analysis. In addition, the risk was computed in terms of reliability index integrating a novel probabilistic approach with performance-based design criteria. According to the results, a small variation in the structural risk among the buildings under consideration is observed. However, buildings designed for rigid soil proved to be more reliable. Additionally, it is observed that the buildings designed with current regulations are too conservative based on the performance criteria limits. Hence, structures located on earthquake-prone areas may be overdesigned when implementing deterministic building codes.

After two major earthquakes centred in Kahramanmara & scedil; on February 6, 2023, in T & uuml;rkiye, there was significant destruction of the building stock. More than fifty thousand people lost their lives, and many people lost their comfort of life even though they were rescued from the wreckage. Researchers have emphasized that this catastrophic consequence is generally caused by design and production errors and low material quality in almost all building types, especially reinforced concrete, steel, masonry, and prefabricated structures. Within the scope of this study, damage patterns and the design flaws of reinforced concrete structures in Malatya, which is one of the provinces affected by the Kahramanmara & scedil; earthquakes, were examined via a field study. During the fieldwork, it was determined that inadequate longitudinal reinforcement and stirrup reinforcement, in-depth reinforcement, and concrete quality, design errors in the column-beam junction area, ignoring the structure-soil interactions, short columns, torsional irregularity, and soft stories were the main factors that led reinforced concrete buildings to be heavily damaged or collapse. After the root causes of damage to reinforced concrete structures were examined, the measures and applications that should be taken to ensure that reinforced concrete structures can maintain their services in the event of earthquakes that are likely to occur in the future was discussed.

The 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude Pazarc & imath;k and Elbistan earthquakes that struck Kahramanmara & scedil; on 6 February 2023 caused widespread structural damage across many provinces and are considered rare in seismological terms. While many reinforced concrete (RC) buildings designed under current earthquake regulations sustained significant damage, some older RC buildings with outdated designs sustained only moderate damage. This study aims to analyze the seismic performance of such older RC buildings to understand why they did not collapse or suffer severe damage. An 8-story RC building in Ad & imath;yaman province, damaged by the earthquake, was considered for analysis. The region's seismicity and local site conditions were assessed through borehole operations, geotechnical laboratory tests, and seismic field tests. The soil profile was modeled, and one-dimensional seismic site response analyses were performed using records from nearby stations (TK 4615 Pazarc & imath;k and TK 4612 G & ouml;ksun stations) to determine the foundation-level earthquake record. Nonlinear static pushover analysis was carried out via SAP2000 and STA4CAD, utilizing site response analysis and test results taken from the reinforcement and concrete samples of the building. The findings, compared with the observed damage, provide insights into the performance of older RC buildings in this region.