Seismic Design Using Advanced Technologies: An Environmental Point-of-View

Humanity is now facing a climate emergency. If global warming continues to increase in its current rate, the related catastrophic breakdown of climate expected in a few decades may result in the entire eco-systems being destroyed. Thus, humanity needs to take strong and immediate actions. The built environment sector is currently responsible for 30% of global carbon emissions and other environmental effects and is a key player in mitigating the worst effects of climate breakdown. With the fruitful efforts put in operational energy consumption and operational carbon reduction, reduction of embodied carbon is now taking the focus. This is more pronounced in seismic regions, where seismic damage requires repairs that directly translate to environmental impacts (EIs). Thus, EIs of buildings should be added to life-cycle cost of buildings and minimized. Peak and residual inter-story drifts, and peak floor accelerations contribute to the EIs of buildings in seismic regions. Consequently, the selection and design of the seismic resisting system has a critical effect. The use of advanced technologies in the form of energy dissipation devices (EDDs, e.g., Fluid Viscous Dampers) may strongly assist in reducing the EIs of buildings. At the construction stage, the use of EDDs can reduce sizes of elements in the seismic resisting system and therefore material usage. In addition, throughout the lifetime of the building, the use of EDDs may mitigate future damage due to earthquakes, and the associated need for repairs that would have further EIs. Although these effects of incorporating EDDs on the EIs of buildings in seismic regions seem intuitive, they have never been examined. Thus, this paper examines and discusses these effects while considering both EIs and life-cycle cost aspects. This is done with the assistance of advanced optimization problem formulations and solution schemes.