Preliminary study on the impact of time-dependent seismic hazard on design capacity

Recent works on seismic hazard have introduced the concept of time-dependent seismic hazard and different models have been proposed to predict the inter-arrival time between consecutive events. Currently, the reliability assessment of structures and relevant design rules proposed by the codes are based on the Poisson recursive model, for which the frequency of the occurrence of seismic events does not change in time. This paper presents some preliminary results on the impact of TDSH on structural design, by evaluating the strength required by the structure (seismic capacity) for different time intervals elapsed from the last event. “Seismic capacity” is understood here as the capacity required to provide a fixed reliability level, measured by the failure rate.